


When I Think of Love

by NO2800



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Angst bc ofc. I don't do it unless there's angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, I'm so sorry, Love, Stydia, Teen Wolf, i love them, love and pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:42:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12547004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NO2800/pseuds/NO2800
Summary: So excuse her, if she, when she wrings the door open, may not be clad in the most genuine smile (which fades even more at the sight of the untucked flannel he is wearing together with a cap pushed down backwards over his head).That however, doesn’t mean he should be looking like someone killed the cat when she briefly (very briefly) mentions the time after he asks (with surprise) if he’s late. It’s not like she’s killing the mood. It’s not like there was a mood to begin with.But even these obstacles she can overcome. Maybe he had a rough day, maybe something happened, hell, maybe somebody evendied.At least that would make a decent excuse compared to the“A thing came up in the uh- woods. Certain time of the month.”She recieves without further explanation.It’s not even the disgrace of a vehicle he claims to be a Jeep and insists she climbs into before stating that no dinner reservations has been made, or the fact of that comment. It’s not, not really.or: Life As We Know It AU with Stiles, Lydia and a LOT of suppression.





	When I Think of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SO SORRY!!!!  
> Allison and Scott should be alive always. For example; I have no recollection at all of Teen Wolf season 3b episode 23. Ahem. 
> 
> Anyways!!! I've had this for a long time, putting in and out a little and now I'm thinking I'll let her out. I'mma let her do her thang. See how that goes. I feel like this could've been longer but I also didn't want to push it further and repeat myself too much............................................ So enjoy! The title is from the Beatles In My Life, and I swear to god, it's only their first conversation that is a bit plagiarized, cuz I love that one. That's all, I think.  
> AND PLEASE COMMENT AND LEAVE FEEDBACK. 
> 
> New note: Also: I recently came across user (idk how to tag someone?) @safeandsound13 s Life As we Know it AU which is amazing and awesome and her You Can Roll With Me You're A Real Life Fantasy is basically my stydia bible, so you should check that out! and if this any similarities my fic may have with hers are completely not on purpose and ye! Go ahead!!!!

She’s been waiting for over an hour when the doorbell finally rings.

 It’s not that she is a control freak, (not that she thinks that is a bad thing, she’s just not one) no, it’s not that. Neither the fact that she’s wearing a decent dress or that she hasn’t been on a date for nearly two years. It’s not even the fact that this is the first date she’ll be going on since she and Jackson broke up. It’s the fact alone: She’s been waiting for over an hour.

So excuse her, if she, when she wrings the door open, may not be clad in the most genuine smile (which fades even more at the sight of the untucked flannel he is wearing together with a cap pushed down backwards over his head). That however, doesn’t mean he should be looking like someone killed the cat when she briefly (very briefly) mentions the time after he asks (with surprise) if he’s late. It’s not like she’s killing the mood. It’s not like there was a mood to begin with.

But even these obstacles she can overcome. Maybe he had a rough day, maybe something happened, hell, maybe somebody even _died_. At least that would make a decent excuse compared to the _“A thing came up in the uh- woods. Certain time of the month.”_ She receives without further explanation. It’s not even the disgrace of a vehicle he claims to be a Jeep and insists she climbs into before stating that no dinner reservations has been made, or the fact of that comment. It’s not, not really.

Because what finally draws the last straw is when his phone starts to ring with some godawful pop-punk song before they’ve even got out of the parking lot, and keeps ringing until she insists he should take the call. And how when he does, she can clearly make out the sounds of a woman gasping his name with a giggle on the other end of line and how he answers only with a certain time “10 p.m.”. Also how he does it in a way that makes it unmistakably obvious that he is taking a bootycall with another woman on their date. This. This is what finally does it for her.

“Are you serious?”

He doesn’t even have the decency to look the tiniest bit ashamed at her comment.

“What?” He answers instead, and she laughs out loud at his bluntness, because really? In what galaxy of what universe did Allison think this guy would be a good match for her?

“Are you seriously taking a bootycall in front of me on our date?” She asks with a look of disbelief as he pockets his phone. They stare at each other silently for a second.

“It’s a sick friend.” He explains, in a way which convinces her that it’s definitely not.

“Oh I’m sure.” She gives a sugary sweet smile at that.

“And you were going to heal her with your magic penis, were you?” She adds and his face falls.

“Oh come on, we both felt right away this-“He points between them with an ungracious hand gesture, “-Was not working out, and besides we don’t _have_ to do this. Best way this could go is we hook up and then never see each other again.” He says and she fixes him with a murderous stare as he does.

“We can just pretend it never happened, tell Scott and Allison it didn’t work out and you can go back inside and…” He audits her for a moment.

“Read a book? Blog? I don’t know. Whatever you like to do.”

 He finishes and she can’t help the snort that escapes her.

“Oh my god. You know what? Fuck you Stiles. What’s up with that stupid name anyway? Stiles? Really? What the hell is a Stiles?”

He actually laughs what seems to be a genuine laugh at that, before his phone starts ringing again. She reaches for her clutch on the dashboard before motioning towards his pocket.

“You should probably take that, because this-“She gestures between them, mocking him from just a moment earlier.

“Will never happen.”

When she slams the door shut behind her though, she feels strangely satisfied. Like maybe this was exactly what she needed. To yell at a random douchey guy, not to go on a stupid date. She reaches into her handbag and digs out her phone before calling Allison. She picks up on the first ring.

“Hi! How’s your date going?”

“Allison, this is the first and last time I let you set me up. Just wait until I tell you.”

So when she tells Allison a moment later she’s maybe not as murderous as she makes herself out to be, and although she’s pretty sure Allison can tell that’s the case, she doesn’t say anything about it. Lydia thinks that’s probably why she is her best friend after all. That and the fact that she’s really nice.

Too bad her best friend’s boyfriend’s acquaintance doesn’t seem to be.

 

*******

 

“Oh please you need to stop being bitter over that thing! It was literally ages ago!”

“It was not and I will not.”

Allison sighed as the two of them watched Scott and Stupid Stiles trying to set up the new barbeque in the garden.

“The two of you hang out with us all the time! I mean, it’s not that I don’t appreciate listening to the two of you going at it over literally anything, because let’s be honest you _are_ pretty entertaining. But like. Doesn’t it tire you?”

“As long as he doesn’t get tired of being obnoxious I won’t tire on calling him out for it.” She muses as she lifts her glass of wine and turns away into the kitchen again.

“Fine.” Allison smiles at her and then of course, Lydia can’t help but to smile back.

“How’s it going with that guy you were dating? What was his name? Peter?” She asks as she goes back to chopping vegetables.

Lydia makes a dismissive hand gesture and a non-comital sound.

“Won’t work out. He’s kind of a total creep.”

Allison nods at this.

“Alright well, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. But you should be aware that a Maid of Honor usually brings a date.” She answers as she starts loading the paprika into a bowl. It takes Lydia a second or two to react, but when she does she can’t believe she missed the ring that’s wrapped around Allison’s fourth finger.

Her eyes feels like they want to bug out of their sockets as she looks up again to meet Allison’s gaze. The anticipation in them makes Lydia stutter.

“What- You and Scott- When... Did he propose?!”

Allison’s hand almost makes contact with Lydia’s face as she thrusts it up for her to see and she gives a teary laugh.

“Yes, he did it last night. We invited you over to tell you!”

Lydia doesn’t consider herself a very sentimental person, but as she is faced with the prospect of her two best friends getting married she feels herself tear up.

“Oh my god! I’m so, so happy for you Allison!”

They meet halfway around the counter and hug. Both of them are laughing and crying as they part.

Something springs in Lydia’s chest of happiness as it sinks in. She doesn’t really dare to acknowledge the meaning of it yet though. For now she’ll just be happy that she gets to be a part of something as real as this thing between the two of them. That she gets to witness how Scott looks at Allison when she’s curled up in the couch in her ugliest sweater and that she gets to see Allison take Scott's hand over the console in the car when they think her and Stiles are too busy nagging at each other in the back to notice.

“No way dude!” Is suddenly heard from outside and they look up just in time to see the Scott and Stiles meet in an embrace.

She thinks that okay _fine_. She doesn’t resent him as much as she pretends to. Because when Allison and Scott hold hands over the console in the car and think the two of them are too busy nagging at each other in the back to notice, they both always do, and he always gives her a soft smile as he raises his voice even more to let them have their moment.

He may be a douche and all of that crap, but at least he loves Scott and Allison, and that’s all she needs to know for them to be able to tolerate each other.

 

 

********

 

“Are you serious?”

“It’s a common misconception that I am not actually and-“

“I’ve got carsickness!”

“Lydia please, after three years of being forced into cars with you, not to mention that one time when you were practically eaten by that buff guy with a twin that hit on me, which you ruined for me by the way, by saying I had performance issues? Honestly, we both know that's not true-"

“Why do you always feel the need to bring that up? You come and go with new hookups like you do with your ratty old flannels!”

“...Anyways. I called shotgun, therefore I need you to exit the front seat.”

“That won’t happen.”

“Fine.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking it by force.”

“Stiles! Let go of me!“

“Are the two of you serious?”

Scott, whom apparently had just come back from the bathroom, was looking like he wished drinking and driving could be a thing, as he was currently only doing one of two mentioned. Stiles slowly let go of Lydia’s arm and straightened up as Lydia herself stood up from the front seat of the car and adjusted the collar of her jacket. She knew she was better at looking innocent than him.

Scott stared blankly ahead of himself for a second before shaking his head and then begun to walk around to his side of the car.

“Whatever. Just- get in.”

After a three second long fight over the front seat which ended in Lydia squeezing herself past Stiles and pinching him at the same time, she got in first.

Four years of Allison and Scott dating, and this was apparently now a common occurrence in the life of Lydia Martin. Bickering with Stiles Stilinski, that is. Scott’s best friend since kinder garden and since that first, and only, godawful date, a constant pain in Lydia’s ass.

“Stiles stop pushing your knees into my back!”

“What!? I’m tall, I should be in the front seat. I can’t help it.”

 

******

 

“What? Isn’t it like a thing for the Maid of Honor and the best man to hook up?”

“I know that you’re here because Theo bet you money to try and pick me up.”

“Shit.”

But he doesn’t look sorry as he smirks around the bottle of beer pressed against his lips.

“Must be tough leaving the cap at home and having to bare that receding hairline of yours.” She soberly continues conversation, and his expression immediately changes into a frown and his hands fly up to his head.

“It’s not receding! That’s- why do you always have to bring that up?”

“Because you always have to do something that annoys me.” She points out as she examines the nails on her right hand.

He sighs, rolling his eyes. "Whatever I’m going to wring those five bucks out of Theo’s greedy little hands.”

He turns away and tries to spot him through the crowd at the heavily packed wedding. Allison apparently has a huge family in France and they all look very elegant as they slide through the room. Something that makes it fairly easy to spot Liam and Mason where they stand in an off corner pulling at their ties as if it’s nooses and not common dress attire, and Theo leaning against the wall beside them, clearly amused.

Stiles mutters grumpily as he heads off, and she watches his back disappear into the crowd unimpressed, decidedly not telling him where the other boys are stood. He may just as well spend some time looking.

 

She watches him end up with one of the other bridesmaids that night. A pretty and smart girl named Malia. Two things that combined makes it impossible for Lydia to figure out why she chooses to end the evening with someone like Stiles. She shrugs it off though. She has watched him work his “magic” (his words, not hers) before, and thanks the gods once again for how their date that one time ended.

But before any of that, a bit later in the evening, she puts her champagne down and goes to look for Allison. As she does though she comes to find that she doesn’t have it in her to interrupt the dance she ends up watching from the outskirts of the dancefloor. Instead she picks up another flute from a waiter passing by and leans back against the wall to look at them dance.

It almost feels like she’s interrupting an intimate moment, but she can’t really seem take her eyes of them either.

Allison and Scott are slow-dancing in the middle of the floor. Her arms are wrapped around his neck and his hands are on her waist and it’s all fine in the prospect of how slow-dances at weddings are supposed to go. What makes it impossible for her to look away though, is the look in their eyes as they move slowly to the beat. It aches a little in her chest at the sudden realization of what she's witnessing is the flourish of real and tangible love.

 If there are two people in the world that she thinks deserve it, it’s them. Her eyes feel strangely wet, and she refuses to acknowledge this as she finally tears her eyes away from them, only to meet with a pair of golden brown ones across the room.

Stiles smiles then, that soft one from when he does nice things for the people whose wedding they are currently attending, and then raises his flute in a silent toast to her. She can’t help it then, but to nod at him and do the same.

He's the worst, really. But she kind of knows he means no harm. Kind of knows he's not _really_ the worst, but out of the four of them, someone has to be, and she can share this moment with him. Share these friends with him.

He blinks at her a couple of times, and the lights in the room flicker over his face. She ends up being the first one to turn away.

 

*******

 

“I want to hold her!”

“You’ve already held her for like five minutes before I got here!”

“Yes? And your point is?”

“That I have the right as Godfather to practice the act of carrying her!”

She snorts at that, but then loses track of their argument as everything seems to fade compared to the bundle currently wrapped up in his arms.

Emma. Her goddaughter.

She watches the little thing of tiny hands and even tinier fingers blink up at them and takes a moment to consider the fact that Scott and Allison created this. Then she reaches out to pet at the top of the hand with the pad of her finger suddenly the baby grasps a hold of it. She stops breathing for a second and look up at Stiles as if to say “Are you seeing this?” and he meets her eyes with an equal amount of awe in his gaze. They both look down again to watch her blink up at them.

“Hi there baby girl.” he whispers, and she can’t even find it in her to make some comment about his baby language. She can’t find it in her to even care about the camera pointed at them and the way Allison and Scott sniggers from behind it. She bites her tongue on a remark on how they are high of baby-love and hormones after spending three hours alone with their new-born. But then Emma opens her mouth just a little bit, and she wants to gasp just at that.

She feels Stiles' body shift around and lean in, so that she'll be able to come closer to the baby, and she can't find it in her to complain anymore.

Life is amazing, for this moment, and she won’t let anything ruin that.

 

*******

 

There’s this guy from a small restaurant she always visits over her lunch. He always seems to be handling the register when she comes in and she is starting to think that it’s on purpose.

He’s good looking, tall and makes fun remarks on her choice of sandwiches or salads. It’s a thing, she thinks. They flirt.

She thinks that maybe she’s finally ready. She thinks that, after seeing Allison and Scott build a life for themselves and a family with Emma, the prospect of it doesn’t seem so terrifying anymore, like it had for those years after her parents’ divorce and when she thought love wasn’t necessary. She thinks that maybe it is again, with them. She dares a little bit.

Because if they can be that happy, if they get to have that. Maybe she can too? Maybe she also deserves something like that?

Restaurant-guy seems like he’s nice and he is smart enough from what she can tell from their small talk. She loses time thinking about him even. Because it’s nice to get to daydream a little.

She is wearing a nice top today as she enters the door. The bell jingles over her head and she watches with a smirk as he hurries over to the register. The line is short and a few minutes later she finds herself eye to eye with a pair of blue irises. Blue would go great with her red hair on their babies, she mulls for a second before shooting him a blinding smile.

“Back again so soon?” he asks her as she places her hands on the counter.

“Oh you know-“She says as she eyes the items on the menu behind him.

“Couldn’t stay away from all of this.” She motions to various dishes on display and he smiles at her.

“Well, as always were glad to have you. So what can I get you today?” his voice is calm and slow. She finds it soothing in some way.

I’ll ask him out, she thinks as she asks for a tuna salad and he starts packing one up for her. Maybe not today. But soon.

As she finishes paying she dares something else.

“How come you don’t have one of those shirts with a name-tag everyone else in here seems to be sporting?” She asks and looks up to meet his eyes.

He smiles at that and gives an embarrassed cough before he looks down.

“Actually I own the restaurant.” He answers and she is a bit taken aback. He also runs a seemingly successful business then, and cooks probably. Suddenly the blue in his eyes are even more appealing.

“Oh you do?” She answers and he laughs at the obvious surprise on her face as he hands her the bag. She quickly recovers though.

“Congratulations then, it’s such a nice place." He looks around quickly and pride seems to puff his chest out.

“Yes well, thank you. That means a lot.” He nods to her and then adds;

“It’s David, by the way, since you’re asking.”

She takes the bag from him with a smile.

“Nice to meet you David.” She says, then she turns on her heels to walk out again.

“You too…?” He the question is obvious as he calls after her on her way out.

She turns in the door and makes sure her hair flies nicely over her shoulder as she does.

“Lydia.”

 

*********

 

"You did that?"

"I sure did." He's not looking at her as he answers, too occupied with placing the finishing touches to Emma's birthday cake. It looks gorgeous, flawless and pretty in a way that makes her mouth water with the thought of digging into it.

His fingers work with a precision as he does it, and she doesn't know why she feels weird watching. Maybe because he's usually everything _but_ precisions, clumsy, with flailing limbs and a buffer-account in his bank for when he breaks things at stores or in restaurants.

She crosses her arms, glaring at the pink perfection towering on the kitchen counter, all delicious looking and stupid.

"But you're not supposed to actually be good at it." She accuses him, and his eyes flicker over to her for a moment. There's humor in them, and a warm note to his voice as he answers.

"Lydia, I've literally baked and cooked almost every weekend for you, me, Scott and Allison for like- at least the last two years." He says, eyebrows high and tongue peeking out between his lips as he makes another flower come together with the icing.

"That's different." She points out, brow furrowing as she takes a few steps closer to inspect if maybe it seems less perfect up close. Her eyes shift over his concentrated expression, the slope of his nose, and how his lips mash together as he dots down on yet another creation of swirls. It doesn't.

"That's like... Muffins and pasta carbonara. It's dinner and stuff that needs like, what? Fifteen minutes in the oven. It's not this." She states, and is irritated when she realizes only after she's finished, that it sounds like praise.

"It's not different." He explains, still not looking over at her. "They're both edible, the difference is that those dishes take fifteen minutes in the oven, and this took two hours, that's rather a testament to my bad patience Lyds, not how developed my skillset in the art of cooking is." He answers, oblivious to her unwilled compliment.

"But thanks." He says next, turning to her with a shit-eating grin as he shucks the pastry bag into the sink. And maybe not.

"Don't let it get to your head." She snarks at him, and he laughs out loud.

"Wouldn't dream of it." He nods courteously at her, before picking up the plate with the cake and motioning towards the door opening up to the living room, silently asking her to do him the favor.

She reaches to open it but stills with her hand on the knob, turning back to him. Her eyes flicker over the cake, up his arms to his face, and he's watching her with a curious expression as she tries to will together words and conjure a sentence with them, that without giving too much away, will tell him that she doesn't think he's horrible all the time, even though she pretends it. She wants to say something about how nice this is, him doing this for Emma, for Scott, for Allison.

She's just about to say it, lips parting with the motion, when the door from the hallway on the other end of the room opens.

She watches him as he turns and his date strides into the room, steps faltering when she realizes she might've interrupted something. A moment. She's interrupted a moment, and Lydia glares. Stiles seem genuinely oblivious to this however, as opposed from earlier.

"Looking for something?" He asks with a wink, and the tension eases out of the girl’s body, and Christine, or Caroline maybe, Lydia can't remember, something with a C she thinks, saunters closer. She doesn't bother much with remembering the names of his dates anymore. Knows it's no use when it's never the same one at the next gathering.

"Hi." She says, pressing a kiss to his cheek as she comes to stand beside him, and Lydia observes the simple action, wondering why she feels intruded when she's more of the intruder in that exact moment.

He smiles in response and turns back to Lydia, relaxed face and still separated from her by the cake in his hands.

"You're so amazing at that." Says Cassandra, and Lydia purses her lips at how the compliment slips out with, what for her would've had to been a practiced ease, but that to this Camila seems natural.

 Stiles chuckles low in his throat, shifting his weight and smiles smugly at Lydia raising an eyebrow. "I think I know someone that would beg to differ." He says warmly.

 And next things she knows, Lydia feels a little more like herself, her hand tightening again around the doorknob, as she smiles back at him. For once genuine, and not because he has tripped or stubbed his toe.

Courtney seems confused for a moment, but Lydia suddenly feels less. The words she had scrambled to find a moment earlier seems unnecessary as she pushes the door open, and they start the first lines of the Happy Birthday song still smiling at each other. She thinks that a lot of things are uneccesary. But not the way him, her, and their two best friends fit together with that ease that is nowhere near practiced, but natural and so undemanding that it makes everything ok.

 Like how it makes her inability to give him a honest and kosher compliment ok, and how it makes his unsettled energy and the way he can't listen to sad songs ok, because they all know why. Because they don't want to push Lydia, and no one wants to remind him of Claudia if he doesn't want to talk about it.

 

"What are you looking at?" Asks Allison a while later, during Lydia's shamefull moment of devouring her too-large piece of cake in the corner of the lounge.

She is looking at Stiles again, and she doesn't know why. She doesn't want to recognize it either, so she turns to her best friend, shrugging and trying to brush it off as Allison squints at her.

"I can't believe she's already celebrating a birthday." Lydia chooses to focus on instead, and of course that makes Allison forget her own question completely.

"I know right? Good god, I don't know if I should cry because I know that we are one year closer to no diapers, full nights of sleep, and watching Scott play stern dad, or if I should instead cry about the fact that she's growing up so quickly."

She has turned, and watches her daughter make a mess of her bib and the sleeves of Scott's dress shirt, with their friends and family standing around laughing at the spectacle of it. Derek Hale, Scott's grumpy _something_ (she's pretty certain they're not actually related.) stands in a corner of the room, filming the adorable scene playing out in front of them.

"Me neither." Says Lydia, because she doesn't. She's feels a jarred and jaded all of sudden, thinking of all the horrible things she knows the little bundle of person in front of her is inevitably growing up to learn.

"Looking forward to see Scott handle the first relationship prospect entering this house though." She muses, picking up her glass of wine and taking a sip.

Allison’s snorts into her own glass at he comment.

"Are you kidding? He'll probably offer them candy and to move in, come the second date." Allison sighs, smiling at the view in front of her.

"Probably." Lydia agrees, watching her instead.

"And then Stiles will yell and threaten with a beat-up at any hands he spots too low on waists, and things like that." Allison spectates, and now it's Lydia’s turn to snort into her drink.

"Well, I think that is a given." She replies.

And then, as Allison looks over, they don't need to say anything else. Wordlessly they agree to put down their glasses, and go to join the group of people gathered at the table.

Stiles is staring down at his white button-up as they reach them, or rather, at the big, slobby spot on it.

"Of all people, she always has choose me to spill on?" He says with a sigh.

"Of course." Lydia answers, grabbing a napkin and bringing it to wipe of the cake that is covering her goddaughter’s chin.

"She's a lady with class."

 

 

*******

 

"Do you think," Stiles wonders out loud to her as he comes to stand next to her on the deck in the back-space of his apartment building, leaning down on the railing that surrounds it and watching as Scott sets up the grill. "That if I asked very nicely, he'd let me light it up just _once_?"

Lydia puts down the beer she's been nursing next to his hands on the railing and pretends to consider this for a moment.

"Yes." She says finally, and his expression brightens with surprise as she does.

"If he wanted to start a fire but didn't want to pay the reimbursement money for rebuilding whatever it was that burnt down." She continues, and then he scowls at her instead.

"Ha." He scrunches up his nose. "That's funny." He says, voice flat and sounding the opposite of amused.

"The most commonly used word to describe me." She agrees, deadpan. "Funny."

At that he actually smiles and looks up at her from where he's leaning down.

"Nah, honestly-" He says as he straightens up, turning around to lean back instead. "I think you're at least above average." He clinks his bottle against hers and winks before raising it to his lips. She watches him for a moment, scrutinizing him for signs of dishonesty, but comes up blank, which surprises her for some reason.

"Thanks Stiles." She settles on, and he nods at her in recognition.

"You're welcome."

They're quiet for another moment, and it's not uncomfortable or distressing. It's just nice.

"So how’s your research coming along?" He asks, and sounds genuinely interested.

Immediately, because she can't resist it, she goes off on a spiral about it. He's smart, she knows he is, so she doesn't hold back on complicated words or put in the effort of making it seem like a lesser process than it is. It's liberating, getting to be excited about it to someone who actually nods in the right places and asks questions that makes her shed light on some things she wouldn't have thought of telling otherwise.

"So if it comes back positive, you're certainly getting that grant then?" He asks a couple of minutes later, crick at his eyebrow from concentrating to keep up.

She nods, smiling with her teeth for once, and he lights up then too.

"That's great Lydia." He says, looking younger as his forehead smoothes out with the ease that the smile offer his features.

"Fields medal before thirty certainly still in motion then." He grins at her, and she ducks her head as they chuckle.

"Still got three years to go." She replies, and she's actually serious, and she thinks he can tell, which is why she feels relieved when she looks back up and he isn't laughing anymore.

"What about you?" She asks next, because as interesting as she finds her job, she can admit there's a certain element of captivity to his as well.

"Oh." He says, and immediately his brow furrows as his eyes move to stare somewhere behind here.

"Well, obviously I couldn't tell you too much but..." He trails off, and she stays silent, waiting for him to continue on his own.

"The BU got me on this case right now and, yeah I..." He shifts the bottle between his hands and glances downwards.

"Some things are easy to shrug off, you know?" He asks, looking up to stare at the side of her face.

"But then there's just other things that uh... I don't know, sort of clings I guess? Do you know what I mean?" He asks, finally turning back to her. "I go home and I'm supposed to be off the clock, like- but then... There was this kid, the other week. That went missing, and I just can't... I can't push off. Y'know?"  His amber eyes are soaring with intent and she finds herself fumbling for a second.

"Yeah." She swallows at last. "Yeah I get that."

She gets it, because she's researching medical advances, and sometimes, when something doesn't go as planned, or feels like it's taking forever, she can go home, shower, and drink how much wine she wants and the feeling of still sticks to her like a gum under the sole of her shoe.

It's impossible to rid, when what it's really all about, is the feeling of having missed something vital, or not getting anywhere, and that _truly_ sucks. So she thinks she gets it, because he's working for the behavioral unit at the FBI and she's in her lab and yet, them missing something or not getting anywhere could mean someone’s life is on the line, and if that's not unsettling, she doesn't know what is.

They stand in companionable silence for a while yet again, until Allison calls out for them from his apartment window, a couple of floors up.

"You guys! I need some help to carry down the china and sides and all of that shit." She announces, and Stiles bounds up, waving at her exaggeratedly.

"Yes dear!" He yells, and Scott snorts from where he's stood below them.

"Good boy." Allison retorts, and now Lydia is snorting as well.

"Don't let him carry the china!" Lydia begs from beside him, although it's his own, because she would like to avoid another trip to the hospital that has to do with Stiles dropping things.

He turns to her, glaring and she smiles sweetly up at him.

"God Lydia, one could think you could give me the benefit of a doubt once in a while." He sulks, taking another drag of his beer.

"All of you." he adds, pointing accusingly at Scott whom has finished lighting the grill, and comes up beside them, catching only the last of their conversation.

Scott raises his hands in defense, looking confused but accepting defeat, as Stiles sets his beer down and pushes past him to go help Allison.

He takes Stiles place, and Lydia stays put, content with her new companion.

"You sort of could though, you know." Scott says carefully, picking up Stiles beer and taking a sip while he looks at the side of her face. It's irritating. That Scott knows nothing about the conversation that has just occurred, and yet knows exactly what to say to pinpoint why it feel unnerving to Lydia. She chooses to ignore the subject he's opening up for, rather picking the easy answer to his statement.

"Yeah, yeah." She says, waving her hand in a noncommittal way as she turns around as well to lean her back against the wooden railing.

"He hates me, and all of that." She tries to joke. "Yada, yada." She adds when she feels it falling flat.

Scott gives her an unreadable look, one that makes her feel like she's being scrutinized under a magnifying glass, and she squirms uncomfortably in her dress.

"What?" She snaps at him finally, wishing he wouldn't also look so kind with that probing gaze.

"He... I-" Scott begins, interrupted suddenly by the entry to the apartment complex is slammed up, revealing Stiles struggling to carry what looks like every piece of china he owns, face red and defiant set to his brow.

They both sigh, and Scott sets down the bottle again, pushing up the sleeves of his henley. He turns to her once more before he leaves to spare Stiles the embarrassment, and smiles as he says;

"He really, really, doesn't Lydia."

And then he's off, and Lydia is left standing at the same place she's been since the beginning of the night, and yet, she feels as if something has moved.

 

******

 

It’s just starting to darken outside, and she feels sore from a long day at work. This is why she’s just finished a long bath and has her nicest pajamas on when she settles down in the couch with a cup of tea and a good book. She glances down at her phone, when she sees his friend request on Facebook.

David Hayes. She finds herself smiling as she accepts it and then puts her phone away to sink further into the cushions and open her book. The back of her minds hums quietly with how she feels warm with the prospect of being able to ignore this attempt David Hayes is making.

 She doesn't actually acknowledge the thought of looking forward to do what she does every other Friday of her year - settling into her seat around the table at the McCall house, glass of wine in hand and laughter in her belly, and then a few hours later, settling into the couch, and into Stiles side as she reaches for the remote and he holds it out of her grasp. There's something about that image that is slowly molding around her, a bigger picture she's only just now beginning to see. She can't pinpoint it yet, what it is that's being revealed in that, that is not yet fully developed, but she doesn't dwell on it either, just sighs happily as she flips open her new piece of literature.

She’s barley a page in when the phone starts vibrating again. She sighs, irritated this time, as she puts her book down and picks her phone up from the living room table. It’s an unknown number. She eyes it suspiciously for a moment before deciding to pick up.

“Yes this is Lydia Martin?” she answers while trying to suppress a yawn.

“Ms. Martin.” A stranger voice speaks her name on the other end of the line and suddenly she sits up straighter. Something crawls down her neck as she hears the crackly voice on phone-line and a bad feeling lands in her gut.

She doesn’t know why but she grasps the phone tighter all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry to tell you, but there has been a terrible accident.”

 

*******

 

The ER doors fly open as she storms in. The nurse at the front desk is calmly clicking on the computer and there are a few others positioned in the waiting room. A boy lies over three chairs sleeping with a 'Get Well'- balloon attached to his hand. She wonders how the world can be still to them. She wonders why they aren’t in a current state of panic, or running around trying to get something done. She wonders why their world hasn’t just been turned upside down like hers.

She throws herself against the counter grasping on to the edges of it so hard that her knuckles turn white.

“Allison and Scott McCall! Please, do you know anything about them I-“

The lady behind the counter startles at her sudden words and Lydia feels irritation rise in her chest beside the panic currently ripping through her every vein.

“Where are they? Are they okay? I need to know!”

 Why isn’t this lady ready? She should have been more prepared. She’s just sitting there clicking through Buzzfeed probably and she should’ve been more-

“Please Ms, if you would just take a deep breath and tell me their names again and I’ll-“

  
“Lydia Martin?” A voice interrupts and her head turns automatically at her name being called. It’s a middle aged man in a white robe and scrubs that’s walking towards her. His nametag reads Dr. Blake and she wished she cared more.

“Yes?” She answers, her voice sounding strangely out of breath as he approaches her.

He has kind eyes, a shallow brown. And she notices grey starting to weave through the black at his temples. There’s also a drop of red on his sleeve. It’s nothing really. Doesn’t have to be what Lydia’s mind immediately thinks it is. But it makes her blood run cold and suddenly she can’t help but take a small step back as he stops before her.

“Would you like to sit down?” he asks her and she closes her eyes then. Because that sentence is strangely familiar. Isn’t it?

She has barely spent a day at a hospital in all her life and yet it already feels like she has started to free fall. Because that’s what they say in the movies and the TV-shows. Isn’t it?

“Allison and Scott?” She croaks out, hardly aware of how she stumbles and reaches out to steady herself against the wall.

“Ms. Martin…” Dr. Blake begins.

“Just- Tell me.” She demands quietly, meeting his eyes again. Suddenly thinking they are rather empty than kind.

“I’m truly, so sorry for your loss.” He says then and that’s when she knows.

It feels like the ground is slipping away beneath her feet and she is scrambling for foothold, grasping in thin air. It feels like drowning, not knowing which direction to swim to break the surface. It feels like pure darkness.

“No.”

The whimper, she realizes, is coming from herself. She feels the tears falling silently down her cheeks. Because it can’t be true. Scott and Allison is here in this building, and in no scenario possible are they not alive. No version of Scott could be cold and lifeless. No form of Allison ever not fighting.

 It can’t be true, but apparently, it is.

An ache so abrupt it feels like she has been punched spreads in her chest and her hands clutch at her ribcage as it does.

“No. _No._ ”

“I’m so sorry.” Dr. Blake says again, reaching for her. She stumbles away and her back hits something solid and warm.

“Lydia?”

The voice from behind her is so heartbreakingly familiar in that moment that she can hardly turn around. Because he’s part of them. And if they are no more, so shouldn’t he be. But he’s standing right behind her.

“Lydia?”

Big hands wrap around her arms and spins her around to face him. Stiles looks like she feels. Their eyes meet and she sees the question in them even if the answer must be obvious to him already. It takes everything in her too slowly shake her head.

 She sees something go out in the amber of his gaze then. Something dies as his hands fall to his sides and he straightens up, and such an extreme and entire tiredness seems to land on his shoulders.

“They can’t be.” He whispers, slowly shaking his head. His eyes fixed on something above her shoulder.

“They can’t be?” He repeats, but this time he is looking at her and she shrugs, wiping at her eyes.

Next thing she knows he rams into her. And he’s solid in a room that feels like its floating and the hard expanse of his chest feels like something. Something that’s not death and ominous on the other side of a hospital door.

 It feels like a breath of air, clutching to him in the nearly empty waiting room of the ER, it feels like an lifebuoy, how his arms wind around her middle so hard that she can barely get air.

She senses Dr. Blake moving behind them and feels how Stiles reaches for him, without letting her go.

“They have…” He quiets and swallows before he continues. She can feel his tears hit the back of her shirt.

“They have a baby daughter, Emma. Was she…?” He finishes and Lydia feels her stomach sink even further. Because she can’t fathom that she didn’t think of it earlier. The only ones mentioned had been Scott and Allison so they have been the only ones on her mind. Shame and a grief so deep she doesn’t know what to do with it comes over her at the thought.

“She was with a babysitter at the time. A minor. She’s with CPS now.”

Weight tumbles of her chest as she lets go of Stiles and turns towards the doctor.

“The CPS?” She manages, wiping the back of her hand over her cheeks, not able to think straight.

“The Child Protective Services, where they take cases like this.”

Stiles shuffles beside her his hand brushing hers. She grips onto him.

“Cases like this?” He asks tentatively and she feels his hand tremble in hers.

“Orphan children.”

 

*******

 

The big house looks daunting from where they’re sitting in his car on the driveway. Strange, she thinks. Strange that something that just a few hours earlier represented laughter, friendship, warmth, love, _home_ , now looks so different. A ghost-house haunted by the transcendent sounds of voices she still expects to wake her up any minute now, to tell her that it was just a bad dream. Haunted by turning a corner and expecting to see bronze skin and brown locks.

“Fuck.” Stiles mutters beside her.

“I don’t think I can do it Lydia. Honestly I-…” He trails off, still staring at the building in front of them.

It’s nearly three a.m. and she has been talking to the CPS on the phone for hours, which’s been letting them know that they can’t see Emma until the next morning.

A lawyer had contacted them as they were the ones listed as emergency contacts and had asked them to go to the house and wait for further information. They had both agreed quietly, and now; here they were.

“I mean, I can’t even understand that they’re not here anymore.” He whispers, voice thick with emotion.

She turns to look at him and see tears line the corners of his eyes. He lifts a hand and wipes them away furiously. She’s not sure they’ve ever really stopped crying. She still kind of feels like she’s being swallowed by a dark rift suddenly teared open in her life.

“Let’s just…” She speaks up, her voice sounding hoarse.

“Go inside.” She finishes.

It sounds almost as a question as the words leaves her lips, but she puts a hand on the door of the car as she says it. It seems to finally get them into motion, because he flickers into movement beside her and climbs out the Jeep.  
Gravel crunches beneath their feet as they move up the driveway and shortcut over the lawn to the porch.

“Let me just get the spare.”

He jogs over to one of the stone lined flowerbeds, picking up a particular one and finding the spare key to the house underneath it. He looks at it for a moment before reaching it out to her. Something is pleading in his eyes as he does. She takes it carefully and lets the cold iron cut into her palm as her fist closes around it. They climb up the stairs without saying a word and she lets the key slip into the door trying not to let herself think about it too much as the door creaks open.

None of them steps inside.

He glances at her and she meets his gaze.

He hasn’t made an inappropriate joke for over five hours. Her brain serves her this information without her asking for it. It’s not like she was expecting him to, or thought he ever would. It’s just; she’s never really seen this muted version of him. It’s an off remark to make, but it calms her in an odd way. Something in his, for the moment, humorless golden brown eyes tells her she’s not entirely alone in this.

“I don’t want to go inside.” She feels her voice becoming thick with tears as she speaks.

He watches her for a moment silently, and then he stretches out his hand towards her. She doesn’t really think about it then, she just takes it.

Nothing becomes less heavy. She is still beneath the surface, she’s still trying to find foothold. But when they intertwine their hands and both of them grasp onto each other as if one of them are suddenly going to disappear in thin air if they don’t, (like one of them is going to be in a terrible car-accident if they let go) she finds the small twined piece of courage she needs to step over the threshold.

 

*******

 

She blinks awake. She wishes she could say that there was a glorious moment, when she was still floating between sleep and consciousness where she didn’t remember the night before. Where she thought she was waking up at Scott’s and Allison’s after a late night in.

That isn’t reality though. Reality is that it’s clear in her mind from the moment she opens her eyes. Reality is she couldn’t rid herself the knowledge of it even if she tried too. Reality is she has no intention to rise from this bed for a long, long time.

That is, until she remembers the nursery on the other side of the wall, and that one pair of eyes that is missing from this house but doesn’t need to be.

She flings off the covers as she rises, and pulls on her skirt and sweater from the day before. She checks the watch on the bedside table and it says 9.30.

Half an hour until they can get a hold of any authorities then.

She makes her way down the stairs to the kitchen but stops and lingers in the doorframe. Stiles is standing with his back towards her. His fingers are closed in a cramped way around the edge of the sink, the water is running and something smelling burnt from a pan on the stove. He stands completely still. She takes a tentative step into the room, but he doesn’t react as the floorboards creak beneath her feet.

“Stiles?”

His knuckles turn white at the sound of her voice.

She carefully makes her way over to and sidles up next to him where she can see his face. His eyes are shut and it doesn’t really look like he is breathing at all.

Slowly she leans over him and turns off the running water. She notices droplets over his face as she does.

She dumps the pan in the sink and turns of the oven before turning back to him again, carefully reaching out to touch his arm with the pads of her fingers.

He jumps as their skin make contact and his eyes fly open. His shoulders sag as they land on her. They stare silently at each other for a moment.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

He audits her for a second, then sighs and lets a hand drag through his hair.

“Sorry I j-“

The sound of the doorbell interrupts him and they both tense up at the sound. He raises an eyebrow in question and she shakes her head.

“I have no idea who that is.” She states and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Not me either.”

“Maybe some family?” she suggests and he shrugs.

“Let’s go look.”

They begin to walk through the house and she almost starts tiptoeing. This isn’t her home, after all. She shouldn’t be answering the door. They both wince as a floorboard creak particularly loud and she has a sudden urge to laugh out loud. She doesn’t however, and next she knows he is opening the front door as she follows him into the hall.

“Mr. Stilinski?” She hears from outside and can’t help but to sneak around to peak over Stiles' shoulder.

A short man, in what looks to be an expensive suit, is standing outside, nervously pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. His hairline is shining with sweat in the morning sun and she thinks he looks well-mannered for some reason. Maybe the small dimples that are evident in his cheeks, or maybe the light blue color of his eyes.

As he spots her his eyebrows fly up.

“Ms. Martin?”

She glances at Stiles who looks about as dumbfounded as she feels and they both turn to nod at the small man. He looks satisfied with that and motions towards the door, still just opened a fraction.

“I’m Daniel Howell, Mr. and Mrs. McCall’s lawyer. Could I come inside?”

Stiles, still staring at the man in front of them, reaches blindly back, and grasps her hand his, squeezing it for a short moment before he steps back and opens the door to let Mr. Howell in.

She understands. She needs it too.

 

*******

 

“Did Scott and Allison ever talk about the guardianship positions you hold as godparents?” Daniel Howell asks them a few moments later as they have seated themselves on the couches in the living room.

She looks over to Stiles and they lock gazes before both of them turn back to Mr. Howell and shake their heads simultaneously. Answering silently and at the same time and seems to be a thing when it comes to them and Mr. Howell. He seems even smaller at their reply.

With a sigh he opens the folder he's retreated from his briefcase and starts shuffling through some papers.

“I wish I could say that surprises me, but honestly these kind of situations are very unusual.”

"Hold up-" Stiles says, leaning forward on the couch with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him. He squints with a look of disbelief at Howell and then down at the papers before he continues.

"Did you just say guardianship? As in _legal_ guardians and as in the both of us?" He asks next and Lydia feels herself still beside him as he gestures between them. It's as if his question doesn't really settle, the reality of it not really sinking in until Howell leans back with a slight wince, lowering his tense shoulders and answers with a nod. "Yes."

Its then she feels like she's suffocating all of a sudden. There's a numb silence going through her head, which is already aching with trying to keep every other feeling trying to invade her body at bay. _Hold up,_ indeed.

She's not even sure she wants a kid. She's thought of it, sure, but in the same fleeting way she thinks about things like interior design, which thread-count sheets she wants and if she should call her mother. It's not a manifested piece of fact that she would like to get a child someday. She's always thought maybe, and if with the right person, but now there's suddenly a child that she loves that has been left with no one, and a blank space on papers laid out on the coffee-table before her, only waiting for her signature.

"I understand that it's confusing, and I'm sure this is not how the two of you had planned to start a family but-" Howell begins after giving them a moment of letting it sink in.

"Oh no, were not-" Stiles quickly answers, and it's only when his voice reaches a octave higher than usual that she grasps what Howell is assuming.

She stands up suddenly, lifting her hands in a dismissive gesture.

"Oh, no, _no._ " She agrees as Stiles starts to let out a wheezing sound she thinks is supposed to be a laugh.

"No." She adds for good measure.

"We went on like _one,_ truly _horrible_ date and then-" he starts.

"Yeah." She agrees again, raising her eyebrows high.

"I mean I would _never-"_ She begins as Stiles comes to stand beside her, suddenly shooting her a annoyed glance.

"What do you mean you ' _would never'_?" He asks her, lifting his hand in quotation marks at the end of the sentence.

"I could inform you of things that-" he starts, but she interrupts him.

"Really Stiles? Now?" She narrows her eyes at him and he's just about to retort when he seems to catch on, turning to stare at Howell instead, who is beginning to look profoundly distressed.

Lydia leans down towards him then, forcing a sweet smile onto her face and brushes off her skirt as she does.

"Could you give us a moment alone to discuss?" She asks, and Howell nods quickly, looking relieved at the opportunity to get out of the suddenly tense room.

As soon as the door shut behinds him though, Stiles start pacing and Lydia stares before herself, unseeing.

It's not... It's just such a huge thing. It's Emma, and she loves Emma, but...

She finds herself missing the baby all of a sudden. Missing the wordless gurgles and the inhibited laughter of her. Missing the short wisps of brown hair gracing her head. Her throat feels tight, and when she looks up Stiles has stopped pacing in favor of leaning back against the backrest of the couch.

"What about Melissa?" She hears herself asking, and his head whips up to meet her gaze.

"She's in the middle of getting her doctorate Lydia." He says, and she bows her head, feels it too as he says it.

Melissa is just getting her degree. She's back in California and she's practically running Beacon Hills Memorial as it is. She's on her own, she spends most of her days at the hospital and she loves it. She would take Emma in a heartbeat if they asked her, Lydia knows she would, but question is if they could really ask her to do that? She works hard, long days and manages to run the whole faculty at a medical institution while doing so. That's her life, and asking her to take Emma would be asking her to give that up.

"Chris?" She asks, and Stiles only furrows his brow in lieu of answer. She can answer the question herself, she realizes.

Allison's mother passing away took a hard toll on him. He's putting his every waking hour into the family company instead, travelling around the world selling weapons and spending more time in classified warzones than he does in his own home. She's sure he would agree if given the question, has, probably much like Melissa, already asked the question himself, but Lydia feels unsure. She feels a twinge of worry just at the thought of letting Emma off to grow up on the road like that, not sure at all if Chris could really handle raising another child in the state he's in, especially not now.

They both quiet for a moment and think. Rafael is not even a option, they both know it, so none of them bring his name up.

She knows Allison's got a lot of family in France. She thinks some of them might agree to take on a orphan baby. But from what she's seen of them they seem cold and distant. They all look beautiful, impeccable to a fault, and they've all got money, Lydia knows, so that wouldn't be an issue. But her blood runs cold when she imagines letting Emma go to another continent, letting a child with Scott McCall's brown eyes and Allison's brown locks grow up in such a unfriendly environment. She doesn't think she could do that, doesn't think she's capable of letting that actually happen.

"Alright." She says, and Stiles looks up, shrugging at her words. His shoulders look heavy with the motion of it.

"Well, I think we've run dry on Scott's side." Stiles states after yet another beat of silence. "He's got no other family except..." He pauses, averts his eyes to the floor, takes a deep breath and closes his eyes before he picks up again, crossing his arms over his chest, thumbs digging hard into the skin of his biceps. "Except for me." He finishes, and she has to close her eyes then for a second too. Because she knows it's true.

She straightens up before she speaks again, and when she opens her eyes he's looking at her.

"I think we've run dry here too." She announces, and although the meaning of what she's saying is enormous, his eyes on her are steady when she says it.

Letting off Emma to another one of Allison's and Scott's friends doesn't even seem like an option. Not when the option that isn't doing that are the two of them. She just couldn't.

They look at each other for another moment, he quirks an eyebrow and she shifts the weight on her left foot over to the right.

"So, we're fucked." He concludes soberly at last.

She mulls it over for a second before letting a deep sigh out through her nose.

"We're fucked." She agrees.

He nods once, and then, as he stands up, he extends one hand in a fistbump towards her. Lydia can't believe him as she stares at it for a moment, and then, she can absolutely not believe herself when she meets his eyes and bumps it as she moves to get past him to the door.

She hesitates, only for a fraction of a second, letting her hand rest on the doorknob. Hesitates only because of the crushing reality weighing on her. Scott and Allison are dead, and their daughter is now an orphan. She hesitates, but then she twists it, feeling Stiles' hand hovering at her lower back without quite touching it as she does.

"Mr. Howell?" She calls tentatively as the door slides open. She looks back to meet the amber brown of Stiles' eyes once more before she speaks up again.

"We've reached a decision."

 

*********

 

"Emma!"

Stiles calls her name as soon as they can spot her small figure through the shady reception glass at the Child Protective Services' office. He presses up close and waggles his fingers against it, as if she'd be able to tell it was him by it.

It's barley a minute before they're let in. She's sitting on the floor, play-garden toy in her mouth and big eyes blinking towards them as they hurry close. Lydia's mind unwillingly goes to the sanitary aspect of the toy-in-mouth thing as she smiles down towards the baby. Stiles however, seems unbothered as he simply plucks it from between her tiny fingers and lays it on the floor before reaching further over the child-secure fence shielding them off and picks her up.

"Hi sweetheart." He mumbles against her head and nuzzles close as soon as she's properly set in his arms. It would be sweet, if not for the tears Lydia spots in his eyes as he turns away slightly, pressing a kiss too Emma’s head and rocking her carefully in his arms.

Lydia steps closer, letting a hand slip onto Emma's back as she leans down to press a kiss of her own to one of her tiny baby hands. Her chest feels lighter as she does.

She's ridden with grief and sorrow, it hurts inside her in a way she can't put in to words and she has barely slept in two days.

After informing Howell of their decision he had sat them down and calmly informed them of the details of it all. Informed them about the temporary custody they'd be granted in court, informing them of how they'd be evaluated if fit for parenting by a representative from the CPS and so on. The only time they had protested were when he informed them they'd be better off staying together in the house for the foreseeable future. 1. To spare Emma from further trauma, and 2. Too ease the evaluation process.

"And what about us, huh?" Stiles had argued. "What about our trauma?" He had grumpily protested while sinking deeper into the cushions of the couch, childish in his actions, but with a valid point. Then a moment had passed in silence, as Lydia inspected the nails on her left hand and wished she'd had something to say as well, before Stiles sat back up, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"I'm sorry." He'd said. And then that had been it.

But right now Emma's there. She's there and she's grabbing at them while her eyes are quickly drooping closed, finally safe in a pair of familiar arms and exhausted after a night she cannot yet understand the meaning of. It feels worth it in some way.

"Lydia." Stiles says, and his voice is so grave she's startled by it. As she looks up again his eyes are staring intently into hers, and she gets the sudden urge to run away as she meets them.

"I'm..." He begins, blinking rapidly a couple of times.

"I just want to say that- I... I'm in this Lydia. I don't think I could ever..." He doesn't have to finish the sentence for her to know what he's saying.

"I can't leave her." He says, and it's so earnest that she feels like the room is suddenly void of air, all of it needed to fill the big thing he's trying to piece together with words stumbling over one another.

"I'll stay. I'm in. But I understand if you aren't. I would be okay with that Lydia, and... It wouldn't change how I think of you."

She understands all of a sudden what he's trying to say.

He is giving her an out.

He knows she's got her career, knows she's got her decidedly not child-friendly apartment downtown and knows about her lab-work sitting in a pile on her desk. Given, he's got his career too, but she knows he could easily ask the FBI to transfer him to a desk job in the city, and she knows his apartment is only five minutes from Scott and Allison's as it is. He's giving her an out, and she considers it carefully while taking in the picture of the two of them in front of her in the dimly lit room, with rain lashing onto the window and the smell of printer-ink in the air.

All of the earlier stated is true. She's got her job, her home, her life and she's comfortable with that. Or she was.

Because another truth is, Lydia has always been alone.

Even in high school, as she was crowned Prom Queen and had hordes of people swarming around her, spilling their secrets to her and looking for her approval. Even during university, when she went on a frequent string of dates and tagged along to the pub with the other girls in her classes during the weekends. Even at seven years old, sitting in her bed while her parents argued downstairs with sharp words and hard voices, with the open book before her seemingly the only safe haven within reach.

Lydia has always been alone, always on her own, until she met a certain Allison Argent. And then, magically, she hadn't been anymore.

Because then she suddenly had all of these things she never knew she was missing. All of a sudden she had a house to come to that was always warm, open and welcoming. With Allison she never needed to hide, never felt like she was drowning, instead- she felt like had finally understood the meaning of family. Because first she had gotten a Allison, and then, by extension she had gotten a bright and kind Scott McCall, a beautiful goddaughter and  a place outside of her job where she felt safe, and like herself. And Stiles... he'd always been there too, hadn't he? On the other end of the kitchen counter, laughing with his whole body at something Allison had said, or with his shrill voice demanding Die Hard every time they decided to watch a movie.

They had forced their ill-fitting and mismatched pieces together, glued them stuck in a way that wasn't supposed to be able to break, and yet it had. Last night it had been shattered into a million pieces, with jagged corners that cut open wounds and with vital parts of the whole picture now missing.

But as she looked at them she felt something else too. Because their pieces may be sharp and rugged and impossible to set back together the way they had been, but they were still there, and although broken- still belonging, still a part of the same picture. Emma was still right there, in his arms, breathing, with the brown of Scott's eyes and the hazel of Allison's hair. She was there, and all alone in the world, like Lydia once had been, but she didn't have to be.

He was giving her an out she didn't want, she slowly realized.

So after a long moment of silence, she takes another step closer, closing the distance between the three of them, tightening her grip on the baby lying in his arms as she hold his gaze.

"I'm in too." She whispers.

Her eyes slip downwards, towards Emma as she emits a miniature yawn, and Lydia feels her own eyes tear up as well.

"I'm staying." She says, and then, they don't say something else for a long time.

They're fucked, but at least, they're fucked together.

 

******

 

"Stiles! Where the hell are you even looking?" She jabs at him as she rises from her knees.

She can't believe she's actually awake. She's meant to be up for work in less than three hours, and instead of sleeping, she's rummaging around the house for a ugly, yellow, teddy-octopus. She feels exhausted, and furious at him for some reason as she spots a ring from _another one_ of his coffee mugs on the living room-table.

"S' not behind the TV." Stiles informs her as his head peaks up from behind the dvd-shelf, hair sticking up in odd angles and eyes looking slightly disoriented from just having been woken up.

She huffs out a breath of air, glares at him as she wrestles a few strands of hair away from her face, and is just about to shoot something snarky at him, when another cry rings through the house from the nursery upstairs, and she instead favors to close her eyes and topple over, landing face first on the couch in front of her. A second later she feels the cushion at her feet dip with the weight of another body.

"Move over." He mumbles groggily, and she turns her head and squints one eyes open just in time to see Stiles pushing her legs further in towards the backrest to lie down next to her. His arms are hugging her knees and his hands are closing around her ankles in some sort of makeshift handle to keep him from falling off the couch. His legs are hanging off the armrest opposite the one where she's resting her head and he nuzzles the leg of her pajama pants and sighs in relief as he gets comfortable.

"I think I consist purely on coffee and lack of sleep." He observes into her ligament.

She hums in agreement, and then they both groan a moment later when another cry reaches them. She wonders briefly over her current situation, because somehow faceplanting onto the couch doesn't feel like ignoring the child she's now apparently responsible for. Instead it feels more like giving up on a losing game. The Getting Babies To Sleep At Reasonable Hours game. For the last four nights they've tried everything. _Everything._ They've rocked her, fed her, changed her, surrounded her by stuffed animals, and sung One Direction ballads, (which Stiles swears is a proven method,). They've even taken turns sleeping in the armchair in the nursery, but nothing has worked. _Nothing._

So now, lying on the couch with Stiles Stilinski hugging her kneecaps she feels rather like she's accepting a long time coming defeat. She doesn't even have the energy to be irritated at him anymore. Actually,-it feels quite nice to have someone else defeated beside her. His body is warm against her and he's right there. She's thankful once again, that's she's not alone in all of this.

"I can't remember what well-rested is supposed to feel like." She tells him as she feels her right arm going through a sticking sensation where it's currently falling asleep pressed up in an awkward angle beneath her body.

"They've created a monster." She muses, as the cutting noises of cries bounces through the house. He hums in agreement.

"It's a cute monster though." He answers.

And it's probably a cause of fatigue, but at his words a giggle worms itself through her body and out of her mouth, and he looks curiously up at her as it does. She feels a blush creep upon her then, feeling as if she's gotten caught doing something she shouldn't. So she grabs a pillow and chucks it at his head when he smiles smugly up at her.

"Oh shut up Stilinski." she says, but she can't force the corners of her mouth downwards even then. She wonders briefly if they were always this easy. Wonders if maybe they've really been friends this whole time. If between too-many pasta dinners eaten around the table stood a few meters away and the hours involuntary spent in the back of his Jeep, they've become something as well. Something close to familiar, or even safe in some sense of the word.

He chuckles as he ducks his head, avoiding the blow, and she can smell the retort lying on his tongue, when a particularly loud scream rings at them again, and they both sag with it.

She's just about to get up then. Just about to stand up from the couch, just about to make her way up to Emma and try to calm her, just about to push the looming thought of ' _you're in over your head.'_ away, when he rolls of the couch, standing up and tugs at the collar of his t-shirt.

"You stay." He says, smiling down at her tiredly. "I'll go."

And as she watches his retreating back, ratty old t-shirt hanging from it and sweatpants slung low on his hips, she thinks; ' _Maybe we could do this.'_ instead.

 

******

 

"LYDIA!"

The yell rings through the house and her heart almost stops at it.

"LYDIA COME DOWN HERE NOW!"

Stiles sounds urgent, and she fumbles with the last few buttons on her blouse as she rushes down the stairs. Has he dropped Emma? Has he accidently run something over? Has he- _Oh god_ , if he's stained the couch again she's going too-

He's staring out the window as she enters the kitchen. He's got one arm around a bowl and is holding a whisk that she assumes was earlier used to whip something in the bowl, but which now hangs still in the air as he points with it towards the window. He turns towards her, eyes wide and mouth agape and emphasizes his pointing gesture.

"You've got to see this." Is all he says.

"You can't be serious?" She grits out.

"I thought you'd set something on fire Stiles! You can't just-"

"But you've got to see this." He interrupts, still staring dumbly at her. Like a cow, her mind supplies her and she rolls her eyes hard before stomping over to him.

"What could possibly be so important that- _oh my god_."

She can't actually believe it. Doesn't really want to. But...

"The Andersons are having sex on the kitchen table." Stiles spectates, and she stares speechlessly into their neighbor’s window beside him.

"I was just whipping and- and looking through my phone and then I looked up and... And their senior meat was slapping against each other before my eyes." He informs her, imagery vivid and right in front of her.

"I wish I was blind." She says, feeling slightly nauseous at the picture before her.

He nods slowly next to her, putting down the bowl in the counter and drops the whisk into it as he leans forward on his hands.

"But also- I feel like I can't look away, y'know?"

She swallows, sad to acknowledge that she does in fact know what he means. She stares for another moment, before snapping into action.

"God Stiles we've- we've got to _remove_ it." She reaches for the curtain hurriedly, but even in her heels she's too short. As soon as he gets what she's going for though, he leans over her and pulls it down for her.

There's an awkward moment, right after he's pulled it down, where his arms are caging her against the counter and his presence invades her space suddenly. It thumps in her chest as they tangle painfully while trying to move away.

"Just-" He says finally, taking ahold of her arms and moving her to the side so that they are at safe distance from each other.

"Sorry." She pipes, because she doesn't know what else to say, and she's feeling a little breathless. Another beat passes as they look at each other, before he turns away, grips the bowl and starts whipping again.

She relaxes slowly as she watches his arms move.

"That'll haunt me for the rest of the day." She says, nodding towards the now covered window. He looks up, laughter in his eyes and with lips clamped together to keep it away from his mouth.

"Are you kidding me? That'll haunt me for the rest of the _month._ " He answers, and she ducks away her head to hide her smile. She turns to the fridge and cracks it open to peek inside, nodding in agreement.

"That's nightmare material right there."

He laughs then, setting the bowl down again and opens a cabin to dig out a frying pan as she pulls out the juice-container, shaking it to get the lumps with pulp to spread.

"Yeah but also like- performance anxiety." He adds, and she raises her brow at him in question. He shrugs with a tired smile as he puts the pan on the stove.

"I mean, it's been so long I feel like I've reclaimed my virginity."

She pours herself a glass, turning around to lean back against the counter and takes a few gulps before answering him.

"Tell me about it." She agrees.

There's a pull in the lower parts of her belly and a jittering inside of her that she recognizes all too well to not know what he's talking about. She stares out into the air before her, sulking in it for a moment.

They move silently alongside each other for a few minutes, fixing up breakfast and preparing for Emma, he slices vegetables and fruits and Lydia is allowed to mix them together in the blender for her, (one of the few things Stiles lets her touch in the kitchen after he came to realize that the only dishes Lydia can actually manage is the ones you take the plastic off and then put in the microwave,).

He's grabbing the juice-can and she's carrying the bowl with Emma's breakfast to the table and she doesn't think about his feet padding next to her on the floor until she looks up and meets his gaze, finding herself opposite him with the un-set table between them.

There's a moment then, as they both glance down at the empty tabletop surface and then back up at another. It strings the air between them, and he must be thinking the same thing as her. It's as if her brain has stumbled onto a runaway train heading straight off a cliff, unable to stop, and for a second she pictures herself grabbing the front of his t-shirt, hauling him forward over the table, she pictures herself underneath him, in a position disturbingly familiar to the one they've just witnessed the Andersons in. She thinks his eyes flickers to her lips, and she watches his Adam's apple bob once as he swallows harshly.

But then they both snap out of it, and she slams down Emma’s bowl on the table and he pulls out a chair with a loud scraping noise that makes them both wince.

She's reassures herself later, in her car and on her way to work, that it's just been a really, _really_ long time.

 

*****

 

She's on lunch break. Her and Stiles have divided their job-days over the week, and all of their colleagues and executives have been more than understanding of their need to suddenly rearrange schedules. It's almost too much.

She feels crowded with every condolence and praise over their choice to care for Emma. It seems she's always close to tears nowadays, and between balancing lab-work and trying to avoid everyone aware of her current situation, (and with them, avoid any confrontation), she's barely seen anyone but Emma and Stiles for the last two months.

They've found a new strange routine for it all, that's slowly beginning to ingrain in her in small, but many different ways.

It's strange how she's suddenly discussing the price of diapers with a yawning Stiles over their morning coffee, strange how she feels comfortable with him lounging around the kitchen while she lies spread out on the couch with Emma beside her, watching Cars 2, wearing questionable pajama choices and being void of any make-up. It's strange how coming back to her apartment the other day, felt like visiting a mausoleum, because she was constantly looking down, afraid to step on a toy, and it smelled like nothing but Chanel o5 and Ikea furniture. While stepping into the McCall house that same night, smelling laundry detergent, Stiles' lasagna in the oven and sandal-wood, had somehow felt like coming home in a way she didn't dare to evaluate closer.

She didn't want to admit it, but she was beginning to prosper within what was now theirs, the three of them. She fought it bitterly, because feeling at home in it felt like accepting Allison’s and Scott's passing, it felt like stepping into something that should've been theirs, it felt like theft.

She was living in their house, caring for their baby, spending all of her time with their best friend. She also feels like she's giving something up, although not sure of what. Because she still insistently wears her heels every day, she still gets all of her work done within the week and still has time to sink down into a bath with a book of unsolved equations for two hours every Saturday noon. But it's something else too; it's a new softness to her that she doesn't want to care for, that she stubbornly ignores. Because Lydia Martin was never soft, never weak. She's a ( _yes_ ) certified genius, with a double master researching biological aspects of human diseases while trying to obtain a field’s medal before thirty.

So when the familiarity of Stiles voice or weight beside her on the sofa creeps up on her, when she finds herself doing Emma's night routine on default-setting or shouts after him to not forget to buy milk while he's out, she consciously snaps closed. Shutting and tucking in all of her suddenly unmade corners and edges.

And then it's the constant shadow following her around. The one she wishes could hold her at night, when silent tears soak in to her pillow in the guest-bedroom that whispers _‘you don’t know how to miss them yet’_. The shadow she imagines is Allison when she sits alone with her phone in hand and finds she has no one to call about that thing that happened at work today, when she almost chokes in the middle of a sentence as she starts to make that one inside-joke to Stiles one night, before she remembers that _no,_ it had been Scott that was the other person in on that. It's almost worse as she snaps her mouth closed and says nothing, when he doesn't mention anything about it, doesn't call her out, and instead his eyes goes wide in recognition, because this is something that is happening to him too.

It's easy to forget sometimes. That Stiles is hurting too. Because he seems to take everything in relatively good stride. He tries to ease the people that are now their neighbors as he stays to talk on the street when he's walking Emma or going for his morning run, something Lydia actively avoids when she hurries out to her car with to-go coffee mug in hand and eyes cast downwards while she presses 'un-lock' on her car-key, while wishing that setting extended further than between her vehicle and the device in her hand. It's so easy to forget when he claims the kitchen most nights of the week, trying to whip together some new dish that he's found online during lunch-break at work, or when his eyes automatically stray for Emma in the stroller when they're at the grocery-store, something Lydia realizes with a hot flush of shame in her stomach, that she has to consciously reach for to do.

But it cracks through sometimes.

One night he comes home with a closed off expression on his face, dressed in a gun-proof vest with a heavy smell of iron that clings to him, and she's not sure if from gun-powder or if from blood, or which is worse.

When she asks him about it he startles, as if only now remembering she's there, and then, while strapping off in such a hurried motion that it looks like he's suffocating from the weight of the garment, he mumbles something about a 'death on location' and 'he just- he just lost control of the car Lydia and-' and then he's choking, gasping for air, clawing at his chest as if wanting to remove something more weighing there.

Worst part, as she sits him down on the hard-wood floor in the hall, she realizes, is neither the smell of gun-powder or blood. Worst part is how she recognizes the panic in his eyes as he stares at her, chest rising rapidly up and down, chasing for oxygen.

She knows. She knows he's feeling caged in this nightmare of constantly reaching for someone who isn't there. They sit on the floor and she feels her knees bruise as she pleads him to breathe, feels tears start to fall down her own cheeks, and feels sorry as she claims a part of this moment that should only be his.

When Emma starts to cry too in the next room, it's so strange how he only closes his eyes, finally able to take a full breath, and then slowly stands to walk off to take her, while Lydia is the one left broken on the ground.

Emma cries, and he finds all of the pieces and courage he needs then, to be able to pick himself up. Emma cries, and Lydia shatters further, and it's so unfair, because she wants to be good enough too, for him, for Allison, for everyone, but she doubts far too often nowadays.

He cracks sometimes. The toll this is taking on him shining through in the most naked way. But the difference is that Lydia seems constantly at fault, naked in how not even her make-up and heels and her refusal to change can hide the fact that she isn't who she once was anymore.

And it's that other nagging too. That feeling of how her and Stiles, and what they had, or maybe what they had been in the process of becoming, has been interrupted, twisted wrong, hasn't been able to merge fast enough to fit into these new shoes they're suddenly filling.

"It's been a while."

She's pulled out of her thoughts in the most abrupt way, and finds herself staring at a vaguely familiar face, from what seems to be a life-time ago.

It's strange then, how lunch-shop David, who knows nothing about how she's changed since the last time he saw her, knows nothing about how it feels being lost while walking up the front-steps to your own house, knows nothing about _her_ really. It's strange how he feels like a breath of air, like a island of daft ignorance, and how she, that always prided in knowing, clings to that.

She leaves the small restaurant with a smile that reminds her of loneliness and a promise of 8 p.m. Friday evening.

It doesn't feel right.

But then again, she doesn't want to think about the last time something did.

 

 

********

 

"Not _that_ one!" Stiles throws a popcorn at her as she appears in her, yes, _sixth_ tried on outfit for the evening, and she glares at him as she watches the popcorn bounce of her mid-riff. She never tried this hard before, did she?

"And why the hell not Stiles?" She grits, putting her hands to her waist and staring him down, because first of all, no, Lydia Martin never _did_ try this hard, and second, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this dress, just like there hadn't been anything wrong with earlier four either.

"We call veto." He answers unbothered from where he's lying on his back on the living room rug with Emma on his chest, eating popcorn directly out of the microwave bag.

"You wore that dress when we went sucking up for the Andersons last week Lyds, no way that it's date material." He points out, referring to when they had to go apologize to their next-door elderly neighbor couple after having been yelled at over the phone at 2 a.m. for, (and Lydia can't believe that she was persuaded into that by the way,) blaring the High School Musical house-party edition on too high volume (and singing along rather loudly) on another one of Emma's sleepless nights.

Then he grabs Emma’s small hands to make a chanting motion as he for the _seventh time,_ says;

"We want the blue dress! We want the blue dress!"

She rolls her eyes, _again_ , but then _finally_ resides with a sigh, and goes to change into what had initially been her first choice for the evening, but that she then had started doubting after staring into the reflection for too long, and _then_ , had actually sunk so low she went to Stiles for clothing advise. Stiles, whom owned nothing that wasn't converse, jeans, t-shirts and anything and everything that came in plaid material.

Well away in the other room again, she couldn't help but to smile as she slipped into the blue dress again though. Something about the image of the two of them lying there, his unfocused comments on her choice of clothing that was always complimentary and yet critical, which would've been okay, if he knew anything at all about women’s clothing. Which he doesn't.

 As she comes to stand in front of the mirror again, pressing a hand over her chest to hold it up with-out having to zip it up, something feels off. Because she realizes suddenly that she's waiting for David to come pick her up and that doesn't feel as right as lying down next to Stiles holding Emma on the carpet they should've vacuumed yesterday feels.

Her heart is beating a little faster and she comes to wonder suddenly, if it's not caused by the man on his way here right now, but rather by the more boyish one down the stairs, with his obnoxious high-thinking of character development when he watches Dora the Explorer and his slightly upturned nose.

Her hands feel clammy for some reason and she turns away from the mirror, not able to face herself for a second longer.

Of course something between her and Stiles shifted when their worlds had been turned upside-down that night. She knows she looks more tired, that there's a new coldness to her appearance and that there's a constant itch that she can't seem to scratch. She's always sad, and she doesn't think that it's going to go away.

She pulls out her perfume, spraying it at her wrists before forcefully rubbing them together, willing that softness that has come over her away yet again. He's become her friend, she realizes. He's become someone she comes home to, and it's unhinging to not only consider this, but to actually be standing in her room in an unmade dress and sluggishly comprehend the fact of this.

He is still irritating, maddening and annoying with always claiming the good corner of the sofa, with leaving his things all over the place and always laying her blueberries in a smiley face over her pancakes when he makes them for breakfast, reciting that phrase she had accidentally told him in their first weeks of hanging out at Scott's and Allison’s at the same time, which he then had taken to mock her endlessly about. When she frowns over her plate at him and crushes them with her fork and he grins, mouth full, telling her "Never frown Lydia, someone could be falling in with your smile!"

Now he's shouting again, and she feels shaken when she considers a new supposed fact; that he's also doing these things to make her feel okay. To make her comfortable and perhaps to, if he's successful, which he unfortunately is sometimes, make her laugh.

"Come down and show us!" He yells now, and she has to blink a couple of times, gather her composition, before making her way down the stairs again.

The light in the living room is warm as she comes to stand in the doorway of it. The spots in the ceiling are off, but the smaller lamps in the windows are switched on, and his edges look tender, much like his movements as he leans down, gently laying Emma down in the play-crib stood in the open area that splays out into the kitchen.

When he looks up his eyes are nothing like she wills herself to remember them over the years they've spent together, next to each other, yet not really in the meaning the words of it suggests. She swallows as he straightens up, staying put, but feeling closer somehow as he scrubs the heel of his left hand over his right wrist slowly, taking her in. She realizes all of a sudden, in this fragile silence that seems to have settled between them, with Emma asleep, and in this half-lit room, that she's still pressing her hand over her chest, and that the zipper of her dress is still undone, exposing her back.

"I mean-" He begins, hand suddenly jutting out, motioning towards her, "Wow Lydia. That's- uh... That's- you look great." He smooths his hands down his shirt and fumbles with them a bit, before finally crossing his arms above his chest, still holding her gaze.

"I mean, you look perfect."

The corner of his mouth pulls up in a small, lopsided smile and she finds herself smiling back instantly. But it's too earnest, so she looks down instead, pulling a little at the hem of her dress and clearing her throat.

"Thank you Stiles." She says, and then, because she obviously has lost her mind, her eyes stray back up, meeting with his, and she turns around slowly, pulling her hair away from her back and looking at him over her shoulder.

"Could you do me up?" She asks, and it could be savvy, intensions even, but she's whispering, and for once he's still and quiet in a way that feels unravelling as he holds her gaze for another beat.

She wants it to feel stupid, when he nods mutely after a moment of tormenting suspense, and nears her carefully.

She turns around and waits for him.

It should feel stupid, because he's got his ugliest flannel on, and a baseball cap pushed down backwards over his dark mess of a hair, and she's in _the blue dress_ , and she's all done up. But when his palm lands suddenly and cautiously on the lower half of her back that is exposed, big and warm, it makes something in her chest expand, and it doesn't feel stupid at all.

His other hand starts to do the zipper up. It drags slowly over her skin, and as he tugs on it she stumbles a little back into him, despite his other hand supporting her stance. She closes her eyes then, because his closeness is wrapping around her, his form hovering just inches from her own, too close to do up a zipper, too close for her to think straight.

And it's _Stiles_. She's supposed to always roll her eyes at him, and retort to whatever he's saying, so she wonders silently over this shift. Wonders if anything has really shifted at all, or if she's just been painfully exposed to the reality of them in the most brutal way, instead of slowly unwrapping it over years of denial.

"I just need to-" He whispers suddenly, and his warm breath washes over her neck. She thinks he has stopped even trying to do her dress, thinks the hand splaying across her skin and the other one resting on her waist, does nothing to improve her state of getting further suited.

She thinks. Thinks that she isn't really thinking at all, mind dangerously blank as she imagines his lips hovering just inches from her skin. There's a thought, too lean further back, to do something that she'd probably consider stupid during any other circumstance, but that she's right now _yes_ , considering.

The jarring sound of the doorbell rings out suddenly and they both jump from it.

He pulls the rest of the zipper up in a second, and when he steps away and she turns around towards him, eyes big, he has surpassed conversational distance in removing himself. They stare at each other for all of three seconds before Stiles eyes flicker towards the door, and she's snapped out of it.

"You should- uh... probably get that." He says finally, eyes slipping downwards instead of back to her, and it's only then that her body seems to set into action. She tears her gaze away from him, striding over to the door and opens it so fast you could think she was trying to run away.

She gets the strange urge to slam it shut again as her date is revealed.

David is wearing slacks, with neatly tucked in button-up and has even taken the trouble of combing back his hair. He's holding a bouquet of lilies, and Lydia feels her throat tighten with the sight of them, but of course David couldn't know Allison's favorite flowers were lilies.

He looks like her perfect match, looks sweetly astonished with the view of her and Lydia wonders why suddenly it feels like she has offered him something that isn't hers to give.

"You look-" He smiles widely, taking her in.

"Wow. How did I get lucky enough to be your date tonight?" He asks, Lydia hears Stiles snort behind her.

A bolt of irritation goes through her at the sound of it, and she answers David's smile with a perfected one of her own.

"Oh, this is nothing."

 Another undignified sound comes from within the house.

"But thank you." She blinks at him in a way she knows sheds good light on her, and rips her coat off from the hanger.

"These are for you, of course." David manages as she wrestles into her waistcoat, extending the flowers towards her. Her stomach turns with the heavy smell of them that she somehow comes to associate with death and the too fresh images of a blurry funeral, but forces another smile.

"You're too sweet." She gushes. "You shouldn’t have." She continues, before turning away so abruptly he almost startles with it.

"Stiles!" She shouts into the house. It sounds harmless, but this guy is living with her, he can probably make out the murderous tendencies lying underneath. He comes into view a moment later, leaning against the doorframe to the living room with his arms crossed and a bored look painted on his face.

She wants to claw it off of him. Wants to leave him as bare as he had seemed just a minute earlier. Or had she just imagined the look on his face?

"Take these will you." She says, practically ripping the lilies out of David's hands and shoving them at him, to do _something_ that she wishes will make him feel as offbeat as she suddenly is.

"Put them in a vase perhaps." She sneers, and it's not a question. She ignores David's puzzled look at another man appearing in the house of the woman he's taking out on a date, while holding Stiles' gaze.

He frowns at her, looking unimpressed as he slowly reaches out, taking them of her hands.

"Alright." Is all he says, and she glares at him for another moment, wanting to jump out of her skin when his fingers brush over hers in the exchange, the same fingers that brushed over a completely other part of her just a breath ago.

"Call me if you need me." She blurts out finally, and he says nothing as he stares back at her, brow slightly creased.

Another moment passes, then she grabs her purse from the bureau stood to her right, straightens her back as she steps out the door, and ignores the burning sensation of his gaze still on her as she slams it shut behind her.

 

*******

 

The lilies stand impeccably perfect on the kitchen table in a pretty vase when she sits down with her cup of coffee the next morning. She's up early to avoid Stiles, which is stupid, because nothing really happened. Yes. Apparently she's stupid now. Lydia Martin, acting as a mere mortal, who'd have known?

She glares at the flowers, nurses her coffee, and tries to will away the memory of David’s lips smacking against the corner of her mouth as he dropped her off last night. She's successful, but only for a moment, because next thing she knows another unbidden memory of lips hovering just above her neck invades her thoughts.

Needless to say, she's less successful in ridding this stupid memory from her now stupid mind, ( a memory where nothing really happened or maybe, _maybe_ , did.), which is probably why her spine shoots straight and she tenses up as he enters the kitchen a moment later, muttering a "Good morning." as he brushes past her, heading straight for the coffee pot. 

Of course, he's up early on the only day she tries to avoid him. Of fucking course he chooses now to pull out the full FBI attire. Of fucking course she finds it hot. Holy shit. Stiles is hot. Dear lord. She's screwed. She's so, so screwed.

"You're up early." She remarks, tone of her voice chipper as she pretends to fuzz over the lilies arrangement in the vase.

"Yes?" He answers, very unhelpfully, very grumpily, eyebrow arched at her over his shoulder.

"It's Saturday."

The statement a explanation itself as Stiles usually prefers to snooze past noon on his free days, and this day being one of those, considering he took Emma last night for her to be able to go on her date.

He shrugs, hissing as he burns himself on the coffee, and then proceeding to blow on it gently as he leans back against the counter.

"I neglected a little paperwork yesterday to stay home, so I thought I'd drop by the office real quick to get it sorted." He admits unwillingly, eyes set on the wall across the room and his hands unusually still, wrapped around the mug. Her stomach feels like it drops beneath her feet as he says it. He's also stupid. Like she is now. But he's also kind, and selfless and quietly pushing his paperwork to a Saturday so that she'd be able to go out. She hates him. Only she sort of really doesn't.

"That's-" She begins, tongue suddenly feeling heavy as she tries to tell him this. She can't. Everything is too messed up.

They're not really these two people across from each other in this kitchen. This is not their house, not their baby, not their chosen route of life. They're not Scott and Allison and that hurts. It hurts because she misses them so much she feel barely able to breathe all of a sudden.

"And why the full uniform?" She manages to rasp out finally, turning her eyes down to the newspaper laid out on the table before her, but not fast enough to miss how his features soften as he seemingly picks up on something unsaid in the air between them. As if he forgives her for last night.

"Ah,"

She catches in the corner of her eye how he glances down self-consciously on himself.

"Inspection day." He explains, which doesn't explain much at all, but she nods anyways.

A few minutes pass in silence, and her eyes rake over the same sentence on page four over and over again, as she seems unable to comprehend what it says.

"Thinking of joining the Republicans?"

Her head snaps up at his voice, and she meets his eye just as he pulls out the chair opposite hers to sit down. She glances down again, only then realizing she's been staring at the summary of Trump's latest speech.

"Over my dead body." She replies, and he snorts into his mug, reaching over the table to snatch up the sports section.

"They lost." She informs him as he finally manages to wriggle it out from where her finished bowl of fruit has been standing upon it.

"What?"

She blinks up at him, expecting him to get it, but apparently not.

"The Mets." She carries on. "They lost again."

He groans loudly at this, flicking the paper shut and looking like a contrariwise child as he pushes it away over the table.

"I _knew_ I was better off not knowing." He grumbles and she feels a small smile twitch in the corner of her mouth.

"Remember how Scott always tried to hide away and lie about the results to you if they lost?" She asks, and his face smooths out at her words, growing longer as he isn't screwing it up in an grimace.

"Yeah." He chuckles, fingers starting to pull on the corner of the tablecloth. "He'd always try to soften the blow. Like, take me out to dinner before I was unavoidably getting to hear about it."

She grins too at the fond memory.

"And Allison always rubbed it in your face." She reminds and he meets her eyes, the amber of his shining towards her, and she feels suddenly dizzy.

"Yes, because she was rooting for fuckin' Giants. You'll have to rub everyone else's losses in their face if you're gonna get anything at all out of rooting for freaking Giants." He remarks and she laughs. They fall into comfortable silence for a while. Both obviously lost in thought at the reminder of their two best friends.

It's sobering to say the least, to know that they're only sitting where they are because of the two people they've just spoken about. Sobering to know that she'd like to pick up her phone and call Allison and tell her with a reluctant and  shrill voice how she found Stiles Stilinski hot, in his god damn uniform. She can practically hear Allison's booming laughter as she imagines it, and she gets impossibly, weightily sad at the thought that she's never going to again.

"I miss them." Her voice is shaky, thick, as she speaks up, and she sniffles shortly afterwards, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. His eyes dart to hers immediately, and gleam with sudden sorrow.

"Me too." He agrees quietly, swallowing hard. "So fucking much. It's like..." He trails off, at loss for how to describe the feeling inside of him. She knows the sensation of it all too well.

"It's like I don't know how to be normal anymore." She whispers, and his eyes stay on hers, the heels of his thumb brushing beneath his eye and a hard set to his brow.

"I don't..." She tries, taking a deep breath. "I don't know how to be whole. I don't know how to not miss her because everyone promised that it'd get better but it doesn't. I want her back and... I have never felt so helpless."

He stares at her for a moment longer, before blinking away and instead turning his gaze down at the coffee in his mug.

"It doesn't." He admits after a beat and she feels her inhale get caught on its way to her lungs.

"It always hurts. Always fucking kills you." He tells her, and that's right. He's been through this before. How could she possibly forget?

"But..." He starts again. "You learn how to keep it close. How to live with it. It's always going to hurt, that won't go away, and that’s not a choice. You can't imagine how many times I wished I never knew them. But in the end... I'll always be so unbelievably grateful that I did. They helped me become who I am, you know?"

His eyes flicker back to hers momentarily, and he presses the palm of his left hand flat against the tabletop, as if for support, before he continues. "They taught me how to love and taught me what matters, what is important and what isn't." He pauses, only for a second, before picking up again. "You won't get to choose not to miss them." He tells her and his voice his barley above a whisper.

"But you get to choose how to mourn them. And I do it by trying to make them proud. I do it as if after every long day, even the worst days; I'm going to have to look them in the eye at the end of it."

She feels completely torn apart as he speaks. Poured out between them on the kitchen table, as if he's been able to see her all along.

"I miss them so fucking much, but I'm not going to let that be the end of me. They'd resent me if I did that." He finishes.

She feels weak compared to this new strong of his. She feels like he's another person now sitting across from her, than he was when he walked into this room.  She feels too attached, too messed up, too broken.

She puts her hand over his on the table and wills him to look her in the eye again, and searches for something there as he finally does.

"Don't resent me." She whispers.

He turns his hand upwards, palm pressed against hers.

"Lydia..." He breathes back, eyes flickering between hers before he speaks up again.

"Don’t you know that I could never?"

 

******

 

It's another long Tuesday night. Tuesday means Lydia's turn to feed Emma, and therefore also the added long, because apparently, nothing Lydia picks out is ever to her satisfaction. Lydia tries. She really does.

Not only because she knows small children and infants have an extremely sensitive sense of taste, but also because she likes to think Emma also has a refined sense of class. So today, it's Italian Ratatouille, bought on can and mixed into goo, sure, but still... Ratatouille. Ratatouille that is soon smeared over the front of her blouse and all over Emma's chin.

"Oh come on!" She sighs, pushing at Emma with the spoon again. "Just one, tiny, itty-bitty bite. That's all I'm asking?" She pleads, and Emma ignores her by pointedly grabbing at her hair with messy fingers and pulling harshly.

Lydia is relatively close to tears right now, if she's going to be honest. She manages to get away, to pull her hair up with a hair-tie and then closes her eyes briefly and sighs before she bends down again, picking up the spoon.

"That'll never work." Stiles points out flatly as he saunters into the kitchen, wiggling past them to get to the cupboard with snacks. A surge of irritation goes through her at his words. Yes, he's the baby-whisperer, she's aware.

"And why not?" She snaps, maybe a bit to sharply at him as he gets onto his tiptoes to reach the gummy worms stuffed away on the highest shelf.

"You microwaved it, right?" He asks, pulling at the corner of the bag until it falls into his waiting hands and grins, annoyingly satisfied at his own accomplishment.

"Yes." She sneers, standing up and pushing a few hairs that have stuck to her forehead away. She's warm, hungry, has had a long day at the university and hasn't even had the time to get out of her work clothes, the soles of her feet aching where she's still stood in her heels. "Yes I've microwaved it. Because it says to on the content index." She picks up the can rather aggressively and recites out loud. "Warm in microwave at 750 degrees for 2 minutes."

She shoves the can at him and he raises his arms in a disarming gesture.

"I'm just telling you." He says, pulling the head off a worm with his teeth and fixing her with an unimpressed stare. "She likes it better cold."

She stares at him for a second. She knows it's unfair but she can't help but push it all onto him. She can't help it, because everything about this seems to come so easy to him, while Lydia has to fight every single step of the way. She chucks her can of food into the sink, and it clatters loudly as it lands, spilling goo up the tap.

"Of course she does." She grumbles, pushing past him and fuming silently as she stalks over to the fridge, pulling another can of baby food out and ripping off the lid. It's meatballs, and there her refined tastes goes down the drain as well. Wonderful.

She takes a spoonful of the cold, mixed food, and then bends down as she offers it up to Emma, whom eyes it suspiciously for a moment and then proceeds to take the full spoon of food into her mouth. It should help her mood, but it does rather to opposite.

She feeds her a few more, making sure she's eaten properly, pausing only to pick up a napkin and wipe away some that has stuck to her face. Emma blinks up at her, all big brown eyes and cuteness overflowing. It feels better for a second, and then, come the second after that one, everything crashes down as she opens her mouth and says promptly and articulated; "Mama."

Lydia's hand freezes. Spoon halfway lifted and napkin still hanging in the air. She feels Stiles go stiff behind her as well, the sound of his chewing coming to an abrupt stop and the drumming of his feet against floor no longer audible. Her mind is blank as she stares down at the baby before her. Blank, until she feels utterly and completely terrified.

"Did- did she just?" Stiles asks in awe from behind her, and she ignores it, straightening up and dropping the spoon and napkin down onto the tabletop.

Her throat is tight, and her heart thumps heavily as she stares down at the baby she loves so dearly. Loves so much she's given up everything for her, and yet, it isn't enough.

Lydia is not enough. She's not a mother. She doesn't know that you shouldn't microwave the baby food, she never sings the right One Direction ballads (a now proven method), and she has to sharp words and is too harsh on other people. Lydia isn't a mother, because she's not a good example. She's a mess, confused and unfixable in so many ways, ways she doesn't want the still whole little person in front of her to inherit.

She'll mess up. She'll mess up this little person that she has come to love more than anything and that scares her breathless.

Stiles hand comes to land on the small of her back as he tenderly sneaks up beside her, eyes glimmering and awed, not scared. And that's the difference between the two of them, isn't it?

"I never..." He says, his other hand reaching out to gently stroke at Emma's chin and small smile pulling at his lips. He swallows, and glances up at her. "I never thought about that." He admits. She doesn't answer, favoring instead to stare back at him, not sure what to say. Not certain of how to explain. Slowly, as he takes in her expression he stands up, hand removing itself from her back and his feet bring him a step closer to Emma as he straightens up as well.

"Lydia?" He inquires, and she tries to get her tongue to work again, her lips to form a word.

"I'm not." She rasps out eventually. His brow furrows, and something hard sets to his eyes as he scrutinizes her.

"What do you mean?" He asks, voice warning, as if asking her instead if this is really what she wants to do right now. She feels suddenly hysteric as opposed to frozen, and she gestures wildly down at Emma. "I'm not her mother." She explains, stepping back, her heels loud against the hardwood floor.

He licks his lips, eyes flitting over her face and his hands falling still to his sides.

"So who is?" He demands. It flickers of something in his face then, anger maybe, or helplessness. She can't seem to form an answer. She wants to say Allison. Wants to tell him what should be the truth. That Allison should be here, caring for her child and hearing her utter these first words instead of her. She doesn't belong here. She's not enough, and it suffocates her. She's been running low on air since that night that seems like forever ago, but also just yesterday. She pulls her lower lip into her mouth and stares back at him silently.

She startles when he snaps, slamming his hand down on the counter, creating a loud sound in the otherwise quiet kitchen.

"Who is supposed to be her mom, huh Lydia?" He says, voice growing louder. "Because as far as I know, we're pretty low alternatives here, yeah? And one was crushed inside a car and is dead. Dead. Gone. Not coming back. Alright?"

She feels her insides grow cold as he speaks, and he snorts humorlessly at her expression before he continues.

"Then we have you." He points out mockingly, "And I know that you're not very keen on being here Lydia. Trust me; you've made that pretty clear. And I'm sorry that I'm not enough alright? I'm sorry that I can't bring them back or replace them but at least I'm fucking here. And so what? So what if I'm not her fucking dad, because you know what? I'm the only one she's got! We're the only ones left Lydia."

A tear escapes him, and he wipes at it angrily. She thinks she's crying too. Big, quiet tears running down her face and his.

"They left us here." He points out, voice breaking with it. "Us three. And I'm not sure who decided to play that sick joke on the universe, but I've told you- I'm not leaving. I'm not. And I gave you a fucking out, and you didn't go for it. I offered it to you, so if you don't want this, then why didn't you just take it!?"

She sniffles as he grows silent, dragging the back of her hand over her eyes and glancing down at Emma. Maybe he's right. Maybe they'd be better off without her. Maybe that is the right thing to do.

A thin and atmosphere builds in the aftermath of his words. An eerily quiet moment that slips between them, heavy with anticipation of what she's going to do.

"You don't know what you're asking." She tells him at last, eyes cast downwards as she leans down to kiss Emma on the head before she brushes past him, out of the kitchen, and then, swiping up the keys to her car as she goes, out of the house.

She doesn't know either.

 

*****

 

She's sitting down in the living room, TV on low volume and nail polish drying as she waits for David to come pick her up.

So, yes. She might've called him out of spite after their fight the other night. He's nice and all, perfect for her in a life that is no longer, but she knows something about him is off. Hence; the plunging guilt that sloshes in her stomach.

Because David doesn't move quite to her liking, too calm and deliberate. His neatly styled hair seems wrong compared to a bed-head, messy brown one she's grown accustomed to. He hasn't got bourbon eyes, he's not a smug asshole and his name isn't Stiles.

 She hates him for making her want him. And after the other day, it really isn't strange that she feels unsettled as she catches him lingering in the doorway, only walking into the room fully as he knows she's noticed him.

"What're you looking at?"

He plops down on the opposite end of the couch from her and keeps his gaze sternly set on the TV as he asks. But at least he asks. She glances at him for a moment before shoving the remote his way.

"Mythbusters, but change channels if you want to." She tells him, turning back to the TV, waiting for it to flicker with change of channel. But it never does, and then she can't help but sneak another glance at him.

Must he do this now? Must he reconcile when she's made the stupid mistake of calling David yet another time?

They sit like that for a while, watching a shopping cart explode on the screen and commercials pass them by, and really, all she's thinking about is that she doesn't want him to find out where she's going. She wants to reach. Reach, reach, reach over this space between them. She wants to forget everything that isn't supposed to be, wants to ignore all of the things that complicates this. Instead, she digs her fingers into the polyester of the couch and stares ahead.

He sighs as the credits begins to roll and reaches for the remote to mute them.

"Lydia..." he begins, and she lifts her head only to catch him rubbing his hands tiredly over his face.

"It's fine." She interrupts whatever he was about to say. "It's fine I get it." She says, feeling small somehow. Here beside him but yet so far away. There seems to be miles stretching between them suddenly.

He eyes her wearily, fingers coming down to pull on a thread loose from a cushion, and a beat of silence passing before he speaks up again. "No I... I overstepped." He states finally, and she feels defeated as he continues.

"I've got no right to yell at you like that. I guess I was just tired and y'know..." he clears his throat. "But yeah. I know we're not- we're not together and that Emma's not really... this wasn't supposed to be how it happened. And-" He closes his eyes briefly, taking a deep breath before finally turning to look at her. "I guess what I'm really trying to say is that... I'm sorry." Her heart burns as he stares at her. "I'm sorry." He repeats.

It claws inside her and she feels flushed with the desire to crawl over to him and bury her face in the front of his shirt and let him mold around her, like a protecting mourn.

"I'm sorry too." She almost stumbles over her words in the rush to get them out. "I'm sorry too and I don't really... We are her-"

She's interrupted, of course, by the sound of the doorbell.

 She hates how it ties knots in her stomach. Because as she's been speaking something has swirled in his eyes, in the look on his face. He's leaning forward, hands splayed on the couch between them and she thinks that those miles from before are slowly vanishing. But the doorbell rings, and he quirks an eyebrow, suddenly back to being guarded.

"I-" she tries as he stands up.

"Did you invite somebody over?" He asks innocently, walking around the sofa and back into the hallway.

She scrambles up, hurrying to catch up with him, but does only as he twist the door open, and a reveals a hopefully smiling David. ´

She sees from behind how Stiles' arms falls to his sides, and swallows, lips slightly parted as he turns sideways.

"Aha." Is all he says, voice dry.

"Its not-" she begins, but doesn't know how to finish, because what is it not? It's a date. She'd even called HIM up this time.

But she knows what it's not. David is not him. It's not them and it's not real like the way she wants to let the pads of her fingers run across his neck, and for him to press closer.

But she can't make any of those words form on her tongue, can only watch as his eyes meets hers briefly, walls up high in them, and then, as he brushes past her, hand rubbing over his neck; "Have fun."

"Don't be like that." She whispers, turning for him anyway, ignoring David in the doorway, not sure if he's close enough to have heard what she's said at all. ´

He stops for a moment, right beside her, shoulder touching hers but facing the other way.

"But we're not." He says finally, eyes flickering over hers one more time. "We're not."

Her chest throbs as she watches him leave.

And then, as she slings her handbag over her shoulder and grabs for her coat, smiling tightly at David, she realizes that no. No, that's wrong.

She's the one always leaving.

 

******

 

Exactly a week has passed since Lydia’s second date with David, when she finds herself drunk. She sits, stranded and alone, in the corner of the place Liam has rented for his graduation party, feeling like an old divorced hag, with hard candy in her purse and thirteen cats waiting for her at home.

What's really waiting for her at home is probably why Lydia is drunk in the first place though, so she doesn't move, favoring the uncomfortable plastic chair that's digging into her ass, and drinks her- sixth? _Seventh?_ Hurricane cocktail out of the pink straw that it apparently comes with, in peace.

At first both her and Stiles had declined the invitation to what during high-school had been Scott's and Stiles' baby-protégé on the Lacrosse team.

Liam was sweet, naive in a way that didn't say dumb, but rather hopeful. They had Emma now though, they were new enough to it that they didn't have the numbers for any babysitters and they hadn't talked enough to each other over the past week to come up with another solution.

So when today, Noah and Melissa had shown up at their doorstep out of nowhere, with the promise to take Emma for the weekend and two equally bashing smiles painting their features, Stiles and her had just amicably agreed.

She _was_ thankful. Truth was she needed a couple of days off. So as the two of them had watched the Sheriff and Scott's mom pack up what they needed for the weekend, fitting the stroller into the trunk of Melissa’s Prius and then driving off with the promise to call every night and sternly telling them to have grown-up time and to go to Liam's graduation party, they had just followed orders.

They had suited up in silence, drove over in his godawful excuse of a car and paid their congratulations to an overly-excited and Liam, and now here they were.

Or _rather_ , here _she_ was. Sitting alone and wondering if the drinks would really hit her when, or _if,_ she stood up. _He,_ on the other hand, was doing perfectly fine, it seemed. Chatting away with one of Liam's classmates at the bar, nursing a beer. He was also drunk, if the way his hair stuck up, his eyes was gleamed over and his whole body riveted with it every time he laughed was any indicator. Which, apparently, it was. Because apparently, she knew these things about him.

She took a long drag directly from the glass at the thought. Apparently, they had yet to come out of the post-fight thing, which simply put, involved lots of silence and pint up irritation, she concluded as she tenderly put her glass back on to the coaster.

Her eyes, of course, strayed to him again as she did.

The girl he'd been talking to suddenly puts a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to whisper something in his ear, and when she falls back on her heels he's laughing loudly again, cupping his hand around her ear to lean in and whisper something himself.

Lydia feels strained with the scene of it suddenly. Oh yes, _grown-up time._ She rolls her eyes, but then, without further afterthought, decides right then and there that it's time to reconcile, for real this time. She stands up rather abruptly, and wow, those drinks really kick in now that she's on her feet.

 No worries though, she's got this. She picks up her glass, knocking back the rest of her Hurricane and ignores the bitter aftertaste that she somehow gets the feeling isn't coming from the drink, before straightening up, brushing off her skirt and heads his direction. She's _got_ this.

She can't frankly believe that he had the _nerve_ , of standing right there in front of her, chatting up some law-student easily, when he couldn't even bother with muttering a good morning to her as he reached past her for the juice-jug in the mornings.

Coming to a halt behind him, she rearranges her features into something sugary, before pointedly raising a manicured finger and taps him on the shoulder. Her confidence lasts about a second, because as he turns his expression goes from happily relaxed, to sour and rigid the moment his eyes landed on her. She feels a sinking sensation in her stomach at the thought of how she once had been used to that earlier, carefree expression of his.

"Could I have a word?" She says, voice snippy, and he rolls his eyes at her. So he really is drunk too then. Great.

"Really Lydia? You want a word _right now_?" He asks, looking extraordinarily unimpressed.

"I mean, you've had what, a week? To talk, and you choose now of all times?" He continues then, launching himself into the conversation that he is trying to refuse her.

"That would've been fair," She agrees. "If one doesn't consider your tendencies over this last week to act like _a five year old_ when it comes to confrontation." She adds bitingly.

 He has been avoiding her. She's tried to chalk up some sort of courage to try and talk to him but he's been locking himself away in his room, or spent a lot of extra hours at work. It feels unfair, especially considering that she's the one usually acting like a five year old when it comes to confrontation, not him. She thinks she sees the girl he'd been talking to look slightly paler at the harsh sound of her voice.

"Confrontation about what exactly?” He asks, looking like he knows the answer as he raises his brow and wills her to say it.

But what is there to say really? Nothing has happened between the two of them.

They're stuck in this situation, responsible for a child that they love, and heavy with a too large grief to be articulated in words. They're stuck in it together and there is no escaping. And they've had moments, she knows she didn't imagine them.

They've had moments and now those moments sits between them, like a gaping space together with her stumpy words from a week earlier. Because once, a life-time ago, those moments could've maybe meant something completely different. Perhaps something she would've called progress. But the world has tilted on its axis and it's not what it once was, but it's not completely different either, and where there once had been natural progression of them, they're now set off the path, forced to navigate together to find a new one, and she thinks they haven't yet. But they're trying, and that's why a week of radio-silence does absolutely no one any good.

She wants to turn, to take off, go find Allison and moan about how stupid he is being. Say that he is acting immature and that she can't handle more than one toddler at the moment.

She also realizes that Allison would tell her to get real, and push her back in the direction she'd come from.

"Could we take this outside?" She says, gritting her teeth. He stares at her for all of three seconds, before slamming his beer down on the bar and grabbing her wrist, dragging her with him towards the door leading to the lobby.

"Fine." He sneers, ”Let’s take this outside."

She lets herself be pulled along, glancing around the room as they go, still feeling angry but now also beginning to feel bad for doing this at Liam’s graduation party. She spots him, not a second later, standing by the punch and grinning widely towards them though. As he catches her gaze he does thumbs up, and mouths, very unsubtly, " _Get in!"_ , and then she feels less bothered.

Liam's sweet, she thinks drunkenly, smiling back at him with fingers waggling in a vague wave, and then, he's suddenly disappearing from her line of vision as she's pulled into the dimly lit lobby outside of the reception room, and Stiles slams the door shut behind them.

He hovers before her impatiently, arms crossed and fingers tapping restlessly against the pushed up sleeves on his arm as he stares down at her. He's slightly tanned for once, after mowing the lawn on a particularly hot day that had required him taking his shirt off. She remembers staring hard and pointedly at the television that exact day, after catching sight of the dark trail of hair that lead from his navel straight down his shorts.

"So what, Lydia?" says Stiles, and Lydia has to take a moment to remember what he's talking about, although just having reminisced about it deeply. That's what eight ( _yes, eight. Fine._ ) Hurricanes does to you, she assumes.

He looks a little angry, a lot impatient and she's about to snap something at him. But then she catches the glint of something else in his eyes, and all of her pint up irritation and aggravation slips off of her. It slinks down her sleek dress and pools beneath her on the floor. Left is only something that feels scrubbed raw and naked. She feels sad and longing and hates it.

Maybe she was supposed to be alone all along. Maybe Lydia Martin wasn't meant to become best friends with Allison Argent, because then all of this wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't feel like this right now, cracked open ribcage where everything she are is always spilling out in unground pieces.

But, she did. She did and she wouldn't change it for the world. Would go through all of this again, just to get to know her. She realizes slowly, as the set to his jaw slowly relaxes as she looks at him, that he'd been right.

She wants to make Allison proud, wants to nurse these things that she's been given. Because if she hadn't met Allison, she also wouldn't have met him. Him.

It's something sobering about realizing that she would choose him again too. It feels not like a punch to the gut, but rather like a gentle stroke of fingers along her cheek.

Her ribcage has been cracked open but with careful fingers he is trying to tape it together, ignoring her when she acts like it's no use. Maybe she was supposed to be alone but she isn't. She's got him. And she's got Emma. And she'll always have Allison and Scott, but right now she's going to take Stiles' advice and try to make them proud.

"I didn't mean it." She says, arms hanging by her sides and his expression immediately softening, lips parting as his tongue darts out over them.

"I didn't mean what I said." She pauses for a moment, eyes flickering over his face. "I'm her parent." She continues, and her finger slowly uncurls from fists she hadn't known that she was making.

"Lydia-" He tries, but she interrupts him, not finished.

"I'm sorry, and it's not like- like... I don't know what she's going to call me as she grows up. I guess we'll sit down and discuss that someday, and I'll be happy whatever we decide on. I don't know what to do half of the time; I'm scared shitless the other half and I feel like I'm never going to learn how to get the lumps out of her puree. But... I'm her parent, and I'm going to be there and I'm not going to leave, alright? Not because I feel obligated, but because I don't want to." She blinks rapidly, trying to be brave. "I want to stay." She says, and her voice comes out quiet. "I want to stay." She repeats.

He stares at her, mouth slack and arms unwinding from his chest as he takes a step closer.

"Me too." He says, with a small quirk upwards in the corner of his mouth. "I want this too." He agrees. "And I'm also scared and I fuck up. Constantly, I feel like I'm traumatizing this child just by being around her before my morning coffee. But I want to stay too." He says, and it uncurls something inside of her, makes her warm all over.

She finds herself staring at his lips, her own feeling numb with having been pressed tightly together for most of the evening. He's got pretty lips. An obscene cupids bow that she has consciously never let herself dwell on, because that's dangerous. He's got a pretty face too, to be honest. High cheek-bones and those big, stupidly wise eyes of his. And if she's being _really_ honest, he's got a _great_ ass to accompany all of these earlier mentioned things, which is probably the final factor in why Lydia chooses to answer him with taking a step forward and crash her lips onto his.

He freezes beneath her hands, and what for a second there felt like a good decision, makes her cold as she draws back slowly from him, eyes wide and afraid that she’s misread the moment.

He stares at her, and she stares back at him with hands still raised from where she had grasped his face. She swallows once, and he blinks at her, stunned.

"Oh my god, Stiles I'm so sor-"

She's interrupted by him ramming into her, mouth back on hers and eager this time. She doesn't take her time responding, choosing instead to open up and push him back against the wall in the hallway. It thumps with the force of them and they pull apart, staring at each other breathlessly for a beat. He licks his lips, eyes dark and dilated and she thinks briefly that he tastes like alcohol and sex. _Shit_.

"Shit." He whispers, mimicking her thoughts as her hands smooths down his chest and her eyes fix on the moles dotting a pathway down his collar. On impulse, and because she's drunk (mostly), she leans forward to kiss at the place where his throat meets his shoulders. He exhales loudly, his grip on her tightening.

"Lydia- hey." He breathes, tilting her chin back up and bringing their lips together once again, one hand beneath her jaw and the other one resting at her hip. Her heart is beating fast in her chest, and there's a warm sensation unravelling inside of her, cramping in her chest and making her press her thighs together.

His hands are heated as they work her over and it would've felt too rushed and un-strategic for her, but somehow it's not, and her own hands are pulling at him in the same fervent way.

She suspects that she has thought about his lips more than she would like to admit to herself. It's not something she spent time actively daydreaming about, but rather something that has manifested itself in the back of her mind, the knowledge of his quick mouth and the way he wraps it around bottles. She licks into him and they both moan as she grinds down on him over his slacks.

He pulls away, panting slightly and staring at her in a way that makes her feel far more undressed than she actually is. It makes her unsettled, feeling hot all over, and it makes her drag him down by his neck once more to press their mouths together. But he pulls away again, and a bolt of fear goes through her, the cold premonition of rejection.

But then his hands find her face and he stares down at her mouth when he speaks, looking and sounding absolutely wrecked.

"I- Lydia-" He begins, incoherent. He closes his eyes, as if to concentrate, and Lydia has the strange urge to kiss his eyelids, which doesn't feel very sexy or rushed or casual at _all_. Which it isn't, she realizes.

"If we go home right now, will you still want to do this when we get there?" He asks, voice scratchy with something she hasn't quite heard on him before.

He blinks his eyes open again, and she can't do anything but nod mutely, as she feels more drunk staring into the bourbon of his eyes, than any Hurricane drink could ever make her.

"Yes." She breathes, and that's all it takes. All it takes for him to push off the wall suddenly, grab her by the hand and start power-walking them in the direction of their coats and the parking lot. She follows, feeling slightly dizzy with the prospect of seeing more of him, with the way his hand is warm and dry as it wraps around hers, with how his eyes keep flickering back to her and how his mouth looks raw, lips swollen with being kissed.

He tries to keep it casual during the ride home, tries to talk to her about Liam's degree, about how obnoxious the Andersons are and how they'll need to buy Emma a bigger crib soon, with the pace she's growing at. Lydia thinks she answers marginally within the approved area about the questions he asks, and nods mostly at the right places. But the only thing she _really_ knows, for sure, is that she's forgotten every word of it as he fumbles with the keys to the house and she watches his fingers, wondering if she always felt this tug low in her stomach as she watched them, and is just _amazing_ at suppression, or if she's only now actually _looking._

She tells herself it's the latter, but has the creeping suspicion, as he finally manages to get it open, that she's lying to herself.

He turns to her, still stood in the doorframe with his back to the inside of the house and searches for her eyes. She's standing so close to him that he has to duck his head to do it, and that aches pleasurably in her as she tilts her chin to meet his gaze.

His hands come up to rest at the sides of her face, and he leans down, his nose brushing against hers and their lips touching but not really meeting.

"Stiles..." She says carefully, voice hushed although they're all alone for once.

"If you don't kiss me within the next five seconds, I'll seriously make you feel pain through all of this because-" She's cut off by his hands sliding down her sides, coming around to land at the small of her back and then pressing her into him, meeting all the way. She gasps as she feels his hard frame against her.

"Lydia..." He warns. "If _you_ don't kiss _me_ within the-" She winds her arms around his neck and merges their lips together. They stumble backwards into the hall, Stiles slamming the door shut behind them with his right foot. She pulls at his jacket and he shucks it to the floor, toeing out of his shoes while still kissing her.

She huffs out a laugh as she steps out of her heels and he's suddenly left grasping at thin air with pursed lips where her face had been just a second earlier. He recovers quickly though, pulling at the knot of her waistcoat and ridding her of her it while licking down her neck. She tilts her head backwards to grant him better access, and he places open-mouthed kisses all the way down her cleavage.

She pulls him away though, and regrets it a moment later. His face are in her hands and he's staring up at her, dazed with arousal, lips wet, hair disheveled and pupils big, making his eyes darker. Her mind goes straight to what his mouth could be doing and how his pants are straining at his crotch. She wants to let him continue then, right there, but- _priorities_. A bed, her subconscious scrambles, a bed is a priority.

"Come on." She swallows as his eyes stay on her, unmoving.

"The bedroom." She orders more than asks, and he nods, but honestly she thinks he would nod to her telling him the tax-rate on the house right now. He seems a little gone, and that only makes her more impatient to get her hands on him. She grabs his hand, pulling him up the staircase, just barely making it all the way up before his lips are back on hers. She's caught by surprise when he bends slightly, hands finding the back of her thighs and hoists her legs up around him. She inhales suddenly, his long finger wrapping around her legs only adding to the urge she feels to press him close, to pull at his skin and get to all of him, every part hidden beneath his layers of clothes and the ones revealed to her already too.

"I just thought-" He mumbles against her lips as he maneuvers them down the hallway.

"More efficient?"

She snorts at that, and he chuckles low in his throat as he accidently bumps them into a drawer. Efficient her ass. Speaking of asses... Did she mention he has a great one?

It continues like that then.

 They're not smooth, they rip and they fumble and they bump into more things. But it's also feels kind of perfect when he finally sinks into her. It feels like something she knew would happen since that first time climbing into his car, on that godawful date from forever ago. It feels like she knew this. Feels like she knows him. Feels like she knew that she would end up on top of him, with his eyes screwed shut in pleasure as she begins to move above him.

It feels too much, and too good and they're moving together in a way that hums _dangerous_ with how much she likes it, because what if she won't be able to stop? What if she'll never tire of mapping out the way his moles charts over his body in intriguing patterns, and what if she'll want him like this always?

It feels like he's pressing against her at every centimeter of her body when he hovers above her, one hand supporting his weight on the headboard and the other one around her, lifting her up to him as he buries his face into the crook of her neck and she winds her arms around his shoulders. And then, when he presses her into the mattress instead, it doesn't feel like loss when their hands intertwine by her head, and he whispers "Beautiful." into the shell of her ear.

Afterwards, they lie on the bed facing each other, faces so close their noses would brush if they moved, legs tangled and his hand resting on her waist after having pulled her closer.

Of course, then, as the alcohol is completely worn off, and she still feels unhinged staring into his eyes, is when Lydia starts to fear again. This isn't according to plan. It's messy and real and she's scared. But god, it thumps in her chest. God does she want him. He's so much more than she once thought. She wants him so much right now, that she considers letting him go.

"I'm not sure if-" she starts, voice thin.

"Lydia." He interrupts her, and she swallows whatever she had been about to say.

"Just- don't think about it. For now. Just don't." He asks her. And she can do that. She could do that for him.

She agrees with a small nod, and he lets out a sigh of relief, pulling her closer.

"You know..." He begins a while later, when she has rested her head against his chest and his face is nuzzled on top of her head, warm breaths washing down her neck.

"I liked you way before all of this." He admits and she feels as if her heart stops in her chest. "Before they were gone."

"It's not like... I'd never admit it to myself then, because we were in a place where-"

"We were getting somewhere, but hadn't quite gotten there yet." She interrupts him, recognizing what he's trying to describe, admitting it as well as she speaks up. 

"I-" he licks his lips, eyes finding hers, "Yeah." He agrees.

"But we're here now." She says a moment later, holding his gaze. "Right?" She asks, needing reassurance. 

"Fuck yeah." He agrees quickly, squeezing her waist and nodding to emphasizes, and she hides her smile into her pillow.

They lay there for a while, and she's slowly but surely drifting off, almost asleep as he speaks up again.

"I don't feel alone right now." He whispers, and she can hear the sad edge in his voice, hear how it wavers with emotion, and it comes upon her then too, that she doesn't either.

But she promised him not to think about that, the sad and the ugly, not now, so instead she only presses impossibly closer to him, closing her eyes against his skin and whispers back;

"Me neither."

 

*****

 

They startle awake to one of their phones ringing. She sits up in bed, head thumping with her hangover as last night comes rushing back to her together with the body shifting next to her.

"Make it stop." Stiles groans into the mattress as he presses a pillow down above his head and pushes her to go do something about it. She slaps at his hand and then he hisses with the burn of it.

"You make it stop." She bites back, but stands up all the same searching the room for the device emitting the sound that makes her feel like she's in the seventh circle of hell.

She finds it, wedged between the bedside drawer and the wall, and it lights up with David’s contact picture as it vibrates in her hand. She stares at it for a beat, before pushing the ignore button and turning back to the bed.

She doesn't expect to see him sitting up in it, smug smile on his face and eyes on the screen of her phone.

She expects it to feel awkward, standing in front of him draped in the duvet they had sex upon eight hours prior, expects the way the sheets pool around his hips not to feel like an invitation, expects him to go stiff and something to feel forced between them as his eyes stray upwards to meet with hers. Instead, it feels okay. Instead she feels warmth spread throughout her body at his expression and an unwilling pull in the corners of her mouth.

"Oh shut up." She says, shucking the phone at him, and he starts to laugh as it hits his thigh. That full body laughter of his that she has grown to find is the best reaction to have in the entire world. He laughs, and eventually she begins to laugh as well.

It dies down, finally, and he rubs the back of his hands over his eyes and then squints at her, looking content and with a bedhead worthy of Robert Pattinson.

"You wanna get breakfast?" he asks, raising his brow towards her as he starts to get off the bed.

Maybe it was always like this. Maybe she _is_ just amazing at suppression. But not anymore, she decides. Right now; him. Him and her, and the little person still at his dad's house.

"Yeah." She watches him with a small smile as he reaches for a pair of pajama bottoms. "Breakfast." She agrees.

She won't overthink it.

 

*****

**_1 year later..._ **

 

 

"Lydia I'm serious. Turn it off."

She raises the volume of the Trap-remix of the Imperial March that's she's found on Soundcloud, content in the wisdom of him only hating it because he didn't find it first.

"Here comes the drop." She informs him, ignoring his previous request.

He glares at her from his side of his car as he stops at a red-light.

"You're dishonoring the best movie franchise this world has offered us." He whines, finger lifted accusingly towards her and hand hovering dangerously close to her face.

She pushes his hand down and makes a boohoo-face at him as the song continues on full volume, vibrating through the car.

"How am I dishonoring High School Musical by playing a remix of the Imperial March?" She smiles sweetly towards him, and he snorts, trying to clamp down the smile she can clearly see hinting in the corners of his mouth.

Mm... What a good mouth that is.

"You didn't just actually." He shakes his head, as if trying to convince himself she _hadn't actually_ just done that.

"Hm, but I did." She replies, smiling happily as the song fades out, and she turns the volume down when something softer starts to sound from her playlist. She thinks momentarily about some other things she can't believe she has just actually done. Like him, repeatedly, on the couch, before they piled into the car with Emma in the back.

She feels highly irresponsible and very satisfied as she glances over at him. He is tapping his fingers against the steering wheel along with the music and looks content as he watches the road before them.

They drive for another five minutes before he takes a right and navigates them into a parking lot, pulling the car to a halt on the spot closest to the entrance of the building.

She smacks her lips. "Pure laziness." She remarks and he rolls his eyes. "It's efficiency Lydia, and there is a distinct difference."

He unfastens his seatbelt, leaning over to peck her on the lips chastely, before retreating quickly, jumping out of the car with a smirk.

"Plus- we're late." He adds, closing the door and coming around to the one in the back to haul out Emma from her baby-chair.

She hums in agreement as she unfastens herself and climbs out as well. Her hands flattens over the dress she'd picked out for the occasion, before stretching out for his as he comes around the car, pushing a sleeping Emma's stroller with one hand and taking hers in the other.

They stop momentarily outside, staring at the door before glancing at each other.

"You ready?" He asks, squeezing her hand lightly. She smiles at him and nods. "Yes."

They push through the door and as soon as they step inside they're swarmed.

Melissa practically rips Emma from Stiles and Noah gushes over that his son couldn't even bother with a suit.

"Dad! I'm wearing slacks _and_ a _white_ button-up, what more can you ask?" They bicker and Lydia turns away, rolling her eyes to smile at her mother who stands a few steps away, looking a little out of place.

"Thanks for coming mom." She says, leaning over to give Nathalie a hug and her mother smiles warmly at her. "Sure honey." She brushes some invisible dust of Lydia's shoulder, before softly adding a; "Of course I came." without really meeting her eye, but Lydia knows she means it.

"Can't believe you're doing this." Isaac says as he comes around from behind. He's tanned from another long stay in Mexico, climbing around the jungles with Malia. "Can't believe you're in America." She smiles, and has to lean up on her tiptoes as he hugs her.

"Yeah well, couldn't miss this I guess." He rolls his eyes but there's too much warmth in his voice for the sarcasm to really bite. "You and Stilinski, huh?" Isaac glances over to where Stiles is currently wrestling Melissa, trying to yank away the comb she insists on pushing through his hair. Isaac looks thoroughly unimpressed for a moment, and Lydia snorts. "Apparently." She agrees easily as he turns back.

"You know we all saw it coming, right?"

Lydia raises a brow, somewhat surprised with this piece of information for some reason. "Is that right?" She manages, and Isaac chuckles.

"Yeah, yeah. What with all of that ' _oh I hate you!'_ and _'we went on_ one _truly aaawfuul date'_ and bla bla, while ogling each other all the same. You think you're so smooth." He smiles, nudging her shoulder, and Lydia finds herself smiling too then.

"Unlike you." She counters, and he laughs loudly.

"Hi Lydia!" Someone pipes to her left, and she turns to see Liam, looking familiarly uncomfortable in a suit, obviously just getting there from his internship at the bank.

"Sorry I'm late and all," he begins, small smile and a stressed look on his face. "But if you don't go in right now you're going to be too. Like, probably miss it." He says, motioning for the double doors that leads further into the building.

Somehow everyone in the room seems to have picked up on what he's said, because as soon as he finishes, they're being pushed towards the door. She doesn't have time to greet anyone else, everyone is talking over each other and gathering up behind them until her and Stiles are stood in front of them, doors opening and then leaving them completely alone and in a very abrupt silence as the door closes and their family and friends has to wait outside.

As the doors falls shut softly they turn to each other, and a languid smile pulls on Stiles mouth as he looks down at her, eyes glimmering and her stomach oddly fluttering, still. With him, always.

He's just about to say something, mouth opening with it, when a stern voice interrupts him.

"Mieczyslaw Stilinski and Lydia Martin." The woman behind the big desk in the further back of the grand hall calls out, her assistant shuffling with some papers behind her. Stiles winces, taking her hands in his as they make their way to them. "God, I should really have it legally changed. Like two birds one stone, y'know, while we're here and all." He smiles towards her and she rolls her eyes.

"Yes Stiles, now seems like the perfect time for name change." She says flatly, wanting to ignore his stupid joke completely, and yet playing along.

"Don't you think?" He continues, obviously glad with having her onboard. She nods dramatically as they come to a stop in front of the desk.

"Oh yes. One could almost think that's why we came in the first place." She deadpans.

He squirms, sniggering a little and trying to disguise it as a cough when the clerk looks up from her desk, flinty and stiff-necked.

"Will my assistant do as you're witness today?" She drawls, scribbling over a few lines on the certificate she's clearly working on. They both nod in agreement, and her hand feels clammy in his all of a sudden. It flips in her chest and her heartbeat picks up as she looks over at him.

Stiles Stilinski, long, lean frame, thick eyelashes and messy hair, great mouth, especially when it isn't constantly going with commentary to literally anything (like the birds outside of the window this morning when he made Emma breakfast, she prefers it occupied... _elsewhere_.) Large hands, pretty, knobby fingers and the best eyes. Really, the best. And of course him. Him and all of the things that he is that somehow makes her feel big always, even when she has the smallest day. She loves him, and he knows. He loves her too. She squeezes his hand, grip tight.

The clerk clears her throat, looking up and adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose and gestures for them to face each other before she begins speaking.

"Alright, so. Mieczyslaw Stilinski and Lydia martin, today we celebrate to an important day in your lives, giving recognition to the worth and beauties of love, as you join together in the vows of marriage."

Their hands hang entwined between them, and she has to crane her neck a little to be able to meet his eyes. He's smiling, that unabashed one she usually has to lure out by plucking at him gently all day. Her heart feels big, too big for her body and that's okay. She realizes. It's okay to love and still know that it can hurt. That's sort of what love is.

"Mieczyslaw Stilinski, do you take Lydia Martin to be your Wife?"

He makes a silly little face, and she can't hold back on a breathless laugh as he says, "I do."

 "Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect her, and only her?"

His face is suddenly serious as he goes on, blinking down at her. "I do."

She feels unprepared then, needing another moment to memorize the exact look on his face, the expanding feeling in her chest.

"Lydia Martin, do you take Mieczyslaw Stilinski to be your Husband?"

Nothing seems to come easy in life. It's hard and it seems fighting is synonyms with breathing half of the time. She was alone for so long, and as she thinks of the people waiting outside to celebrate with her, and thinks of him, she knows that she'll never be again.

It's hard and nothing comes easy except for maybe the man in front of her. Loving him is the easiest thing she's ever done, because truth is, she does it without really trying. It's hard, she knows, she's been at the bottom. But not with him.

She thinks that with him beside her, she's soaring high. It's a long time coming and she's even tried to fight it, but really, all it eventually comes down to this; His hands in hers and that she wants to press closer. There's an always in his eyes as he looks at her and she takes a step closer as she says it too.

Always.

"I do."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ahmajgad!
> 
> I'm broken. Like..... In my head stydia has a massive wedding and Lydia has a beautiful dress and they do long vows and all of that shit, and go on a epic honeymoon afterwards and have lots of beach sex... aaaand I could go on. But this just felt more fitting. Idk!
> 
> Please leave a comment ANY THOUGHTS!! anything. Drown me in feedback, bad or ugly!!! or feedback! It's much appriciated!


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